First Daughter

TWENTY — FOUR

ALLI CARSON lay drowsing in the pantry, on the folding cot Kray had provided for her. The sheets and blanket were tucked up around her chin. Her face was flushed but calm. Kray, standing over her, emptied a syringe into the crease behind her left earlobe, where the puncture would never be noticed. On the counter below Carrie's lair was a full syringe, capped to keep the needle sterile. Kray dropped the empty syringe in the hazmat waste bin, bent over Alli, began to whisper in her ear.

Alli's mind was adrift on a cloud that shape-shifted first into her favorite toys as a child: Splash the dolphin, Ted the giraffe, and Honey the teddy bear. They romped and laughed as she played with them, before dissolving into other images. At first, these images were jumbled, smeary, and confusing, but presently they resolved themselves into scenes intimately familiar to her. Specifically the incidents that more or less defined her life up to the moment she was abducted.

Her mind brought her back to just before she was diagnosed with Graves' disease. At thirteen, she suffered moods so black, her mother took her to a psychologist. She referred Alli to her physician, who in turn referred her to an endocrinologist, who finally made the diagnosis. Her pituitary gland was affected, her eyes bulged slightly, her mood swings were vicious, the bouts of anxiety left her limp and exhausted, drenched in her own sweat. There were times when she was sure she was losing her mind. Lying on her bed, she would stare up at the ceiling, lost in the blackness of the universe, the essential futility of life. Future, what future? And why would you want one, anyway? Her heart galloped faster and faster until it seemed as if it would burst through her chest. Methimazole prevented her thyroid from producing too much hormone, so gradually the anxiety loosened its grip on her, her heart rate returned to a normal trot, her eyes ceased to bulge.

These memories, running one over the next, vanished into a pearly mist, only to be replaced by visions of the summer when she went to camp for the first and only time. She was fifteen. She'd begged her parents to let her go, not only to separate herself from the suffocating atmosphere of a senior senator's entourage but also in order to get a sense of how she'd do on her own. She needed a venue where she could explore who she was. She met a boy-an unutterably handsome boy from a wealthy family in Hartford. His father owned a huge insurance firm that generated obscene profits. His mother was a former Ford model. All this Alli learned from the boy, whose name was Barkley, though with the particular cruelty of teens, everyone called him Bark. Well, almost everyone; the kids on work programs at the camp in order to pay for the privilege of being there had another name for him, Dorkley.

That a portion of the community-so tight-knit, it was incestuous-reviled Barkley only endeared him to Alli. He was a misfit just like her; she could relate to his being marginalized. After dinner, they took walks in the long cobalt twilight, hanging at the edge of the softball field or on the sloping muddy shoulder of the lake. Often they stared as one at the raft moored in the center of the lake. They sat close together, but they never brushed shoulders, let alone held hands. And yet a certain magnetism, plucked out of the droning summer air, drew them, caused them perhaps to feel the same longing, an ache deep down in a place they could not identify. Once, they spoke about the raft in an argot they understood better than anyone else at camp-as Oz, Neverland, the other end of the White Rabbit's hole, heavily romanticized worlds that were home to Others, the people so special or different, they didn't belong in Kansas or London or the English countryside.

That night they spoke while the last smears of color faded under the onslaught of darkness. The air grew chill and damp, and still they did not move. Their talking had come to an end; there seemed nothing left to say. It was difficult for Alli to remember who began to strip first. In any event, there came a time when they stood in their underwear side by side, feet in the cool, still water. They heard a bullfrog out on the lake, saw water spiders skimming the surface. All the lights were behind them, up the hill where the buildings were situated. Here their own world began, and Alli, with a shiver of intent, pushed aside her anxiety about her nude body as she slipped out of undershorts and bra.

Wading into the water, arms held high, they lay down in the deliciously cool water, as if it were a bed. Alli did an excellent crawl out to the raft, arrived there seconds before Barkley. She hauled herself, dripping, from the water; he was right behind her.

At first they lay on their stomachs, out of modesty perhaps or because this was the way most children slept. They were still more children than adults, knew it, clung to its safety.

As a certain fear flooded her mind, Alli said, "I don't want to do anything. You know that."

Barkley, head on folded forearms, smiled slowly. "Neither do I. We're just here, right? Just us. We've left all the knuckleheads behind."

Alli laughed softly at how sweetly he used words that were so, well, dorky. It occurred to her that his very unhipness was another reason she liked him. Preening boys, showing off their cool in the most obvious and ostentatious manner, had a tendency to buzz around her because they wanted something from her father, if only to bask in the penumbra of his celebrity. Proximity to power was a potent aphrodisiac for boys of that age, and would be, until they had gathered their own. Later in life, it would be the women who'd be buzzing around these boys' moneyed hives.

They lay side by side on their softly rocking island, silent, listening to the slap of rope against the raft's pontoons, the lap of water, and in the humming night the occasional bellow of the bullfrog, the call of a skimming loon on its way to nest for the night, the eerie hoot of an owl high overhead. Who turned first? Alli couldn't recall, but all at once they were lying on their backs, their eyes focused on the spangled blackness of the sky, not on the pale flesh beside them, a blobby blur in the corners of their eyes.

"I wish we were up there," Barkley said, "on a spaceship heading for another planet."

He was a sci-fi nut, reading Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl. Alli had read them also, saw through them. They were men from the dying pulp-magazine world-men with amazing ideas, granted, but they weren't writers, not when you compared them with her current favorites, Melville, Hugo, Steinbeck.

"But the planets have no breathable atmosphere," Alli said. "What would we do when we got there?"

"We'd find a way to survive," Barkley said in a very grown-up tone of voice. "Humans always do." He turned his head, looked at her. "Don't we?"

Alli, mute, felt paralyzed beneath his serious gaze. Trying to put herself in his head, she wondered what he thought of the body stretched out before him. She herself had not looked at his.

He rose up on his side to face her, head propped on the heel of one hand. His hair was golden, his skin glowing. All of him seemed golden. "Don't you want to fly far, far away, Alli?"

A moment ago, she would have said yes, but now, forced to make a decision, she didn't know what she wanted. She thought she'd miss her family, no matter how annoying and stifling they sometimes could be. She didn't want to be without them, and then the revelation hit her: She was a conventional girl, after all. The thought depressed her momentarily.

"I want to go back."

She sat up, but Barkley put a hand on her forearm. "Hey, it's early yet. Don't get spooked, no one can see us, we're safe."

Reluctantly, she lay back down, but a subtle shift had occurred inside her, and she was unable to keep her thoughts at rest.

As if sensing her unease, Barkley wriggled up behind her, put one arm gently around her. "I'll just hold you close, I'll protect you, then we'll swim back, okay?"

She said nothing, but her body nestled back against his and she gave an involuntary sigh. Folding one arm beneath her cheek, she closed her eyes. Her thoughts, like fireflies, darted this way and that against the blackness of her lids. Eventually, though, she felt a warmth spread from Barkley to her, the fireflies dimmed, then vanished altogether as she fell into peaceful slumber.

She was awakened slowly, almost druggily, by a repeating rhythmic sound and a persistent sensation. Drawn fully out of sleep, she realized that it was pain she felt, pain and pressure in a localized area, the place between her buttocks. It was then that she realized that the rhythmic sound and the pressure were connected. Barkley, grunting, held her tight against him. Sweat slicked the surface of her back, spooned against his front, and a peculiar musky scent dilated her nostrils, roiled her insides.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was thick, still slurry with sleep.

His grunting became more intense.

All at once, she snapped fully awake. She felt something rubbing against her bare buttock.

"Have you lost your mind?"

For what seemed like an eternity, she struggled silently in the prison of his arms.

It was only later, in the relative safety of her bunk, that she began to realize that she had been the victim of violence. At the moment, she was defeated by shock and terror. Her little body shook and quivered with each masculine thrust. She wanted to curl up into a ball, a crushed and discarded paper bag. She wanted to cry, she wanted to beam herself to another planet like they did in Star Trek. Beam me up, Scotty, she thought despairingly. But she remained locked in the sweaty embrace of this monstrous octopus that had risen up from the muck of the lake to entwine her in its tentacles.

Suspended time ticked away like taffy being pulled in slo-mo. She was no longer there, on the bucking raft, pinned to sun-beaten wooden slats. Pine trees on the shore ruffled; a sinister cloud, spreading like mist, masked the bone-white moon. An owl hooted, and a squadron of bats winged low over the water like Darth Vader's TIE fighters. But she was deaf and blind to the world around her. Her mind fled down pitch-black hallways that smelled of him, of them, of sweat and fear, of wood-rot and despair. But this place wouldn't do, so she went deeper, to a fortress her mind made impenetrable, and there she pulled up the drawbridge, locked herself away like a princess in a fairy tale, retired to the keep in the still center.

Without knowing how, she wormed her way to the edge of the raft. Perhaps Barkley was done and simply let her go. Rolling into the still, black water, she gasped, wept as she swam back to shore.

She never told her parents what had happened that night. In fact, she scarcely spoke a sentence to them in the aftermath, preferring to grunt or not to respond at all to their probes. In those months when autumn strode confidently after summer, her mother badgered her about dating Barkley, who, she felt certain, was the perfect match for her daughter. In fact, Alli was boxed into going to dinner with Barkley and both their parents. What seemed to her in summer handsome was now in autumn reptilian. She felt her stomach heave at first sight of him, and when forced to sit beside him, all appetite fled her like a mouse at the pounce of a hungry cat. What followed was an excruciatingly awkward, secretly embarrassing evening. Over ashy coffee and cloying flourless chocolate cake, Barkley, his nose firmly up her father's ass, contrived to tell him a joke. At the same time, hidden beneath the table, he slithered his hand between her thighs. Alli leapt up and fled the restaurant, for which, later, she was severely reprimanded. She'd broken her mother's strict rules of social engagement, and that was that.

That might have bothered the old, proper Alli, her mother's clone, but that girl was dead, left at the mercy of the sweaty octopus on the raft. When she'd dropped into the lake, the black water closing over her head, swirling her hair across her face, there had come a breach. Her old self turned to misty cloud that masked the illumination of the moon. She left behind everything she had felt or believed. In the process, she shriveled, closed up like a clam inside its striated shell. But alone with herself she was safe.

In time, even her mother came to dimly realize that something was wrong. Since neither tough love nor punishment worked, she sent Alli to a psychologist, which made Alli retreat even further into her citadel of solitude. She was reduced to weaving lies in order to avoid being sucked into that cold, impersonal office furnished with psychobabble. She never once considered what the solemn man sitting across from her made of those lies; she didn't care. She had already developed a healthy cynicism about males, and as for trust, forget about it.

Within six weeks, unable to make any headway, the shrink recommended a meds psychiatrist, who met with Alli for twenty minutes. Diagnosing her depression, he handed her a smile along with a prescription for Wellbutrin XL.

"We'll give the Wellbutrin several weeks. If it doesn't do the trick there's a whole galaxy of medications we can try," he said. "Worry not, we'll have you right as rain in no time."

She promptly threw the little cream-colored pills into a trash bin at the pharmacy.

In Alli's drugged mind, it was now three years later. She heard "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire as if from a long distance away. Superimposed over it was the drone of a familiar voice, repeating instructions she found so rudimentary, a half-wit could follow them. Still, they were repeated to the cadence of "Neon Bible" until they became as much a part of her as her lungs or her heart.

Presently, on a cloud of memory, she drifted off again, into her past. She had met Emma McClure on her first day at Langley Fields, and from that moment on she knew she wanted Emma to be her roommate. The college had assigned her someone else-a blonde from Texas, whom she loathed on sight; her accent alone set Alli's teeth on edge, not to mention her obsessions with high-end clothes and imported beauty products. Alli lobbied for a switch, for she and Emma to be together, and finally the administration acceded to her request. It wasn't that she'd demanded they do as she asked; she didn't have to go that far, merely point out that she'd mention the «stressful» situation to her father. The headmistress didn't want Edward Carson on her case; no one would, not even the president.

There were reasons Alli liked Emma. Emma came from the wrong side of the tracks, from a family that had to take on debt to send her to Langley Fields. She was smart, funny, and, best of all, utterly without pretensions. Born into a family with, it seemed to her, nothing but pretensions, Alli lived in fear that this trait lay buried in her DNA, sealing her fate, would at any moment turn itself on like a geyser, humiliate her to tears. And when, at Emma's insistence, she read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, she understood that Emma was a kind of talisman, her subversive bent a magic charm that could immunize Alli against her screwed-up hereditary disease.

Plus there was an edge, a toughness to Emma, the hardy scuff picked up in the street. She was fearless. Privilege, Alli had reason to understand, made you soft, vulnerable, fearful, as if your body had been turned inside out, pink and pulsing. It was a hateful disfigurement, one she felt powerless to reverse until Emma came into her life.

Then everything changed.

TWENTY — FIVE

IT'S A total blackout," Chief Bennett said, "as if the Dark Car never crashed."

"What about the gunshots on Kirby Road?" Jack asked.

Bennett shook his head. "Only a small item about a milk truck that caught fire."

The two friends sat in Tysons Corner in a small coffee shop with a striped awning out front and bistro tables inside. From where Jack sat, he had a good view through the front window of the leafy side street and the occasional passing car. As soon as he had dropped a thoroughly rattled Armitage off at his office, he called Bennett. Then he ran every red light to get here. The pursuit by the Dark Car, the shooting, and its aftermath had shaken him more than he cared to admit. He felt as if he had entered a new and far more dangerous arena.

Bennett turned his coffee cup around and around as if something about its symmetry made him uncomfortable. "Someone very high up in the government food chain is spinning the news at a furious clip," Bennett said.

"According to your information, that would be the president, the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, or the National Security Advisor. Why in the world would any one of them want me dead?"

Bennett watched a middle-aged man enter, then slide into a booth where a young woman waited for him. She smiled, took his hand in hers. Bennett lost interest in them.

"I've been in this business thirty years," he said. "I've never run up against a brick wall like this. Jack, I've made a career of getting around the brick walls of various government agencies, but this one's different. None of my contacts can help me-or they won't."

"Too scared?"

Bennett nodded. "I'm sorry, Jack. I should have followed you, should have protected you."

"It's not your job."

"I agreed to have you seconded to Hugh Garner's band of merry men." He gave Jack a lopsided grin. "I knew more or less I was throwing you to the dogs."

Jack nodded. "You warned me. But it was Edward Carson who asked for me. I don't see how you could've refused."

There was an unhappy pause while the waitress refilled their cups. Bennett's eyes strayed out through the side window, across the avenue. Following his gaze, Jack saw the bottles of wine, whiskey, designer vodkas, aged rums artfully displayed in the window of the shop across the street.

"I suppose it doesn't get any easier."

Bennett shook his head. "It's like a siren's call."

"As long as you're securely lashed to the mast like Ulysses."

Bennett's gaze swung back to him. "I lost my wife because I was drunk all the time; I'm not about to go off the wagon now."

"I'm happy to hear it."

Bennett poured half-and-half into his cup, along with lots of sugar. That was his treat. "Speaking of wives, you ought to get back with Sharon."

"I was wondering why you insisted she come down to the hospital."

"To be honest, Jack, she was glad I asked. I think she wanted to come."

Jack sipped his coffee, said nothing.

"I know you're still pissed about her and Jeff."

"You could say that. He was my best friend."

"Jack, what he did-he was never your friend."

Jack's eyes slid away, staring at nothing.

"Sharon did it to get back at you, because she blamed you for Emma's death. She made a mistake." Bennett's voice was low, urgent. "Jack, don't fuck things up with this girl. She loves you." He gave a little laugh. "Shit, you're not the hard-hearted bastard you think you are."

AS JACK turned onto Kansas Avenue NE, he saw Nina waiting for him. He'd called her while walking out of the coffee shop in Tysons Corner. She leaned against her black Ford, smoking one of her clove cigarettes. She looked unaccountably fetching in boots with sensible heels, dark slacks, and a navy peacoat buttoned up to the chin. She seemed oblivious of the sleet.

The Hi-Line had been transformed into the Black Abyssinian Cultural Center. The electronics shop behind which Andre and his crew had beaten the crap out of him was now a ninety-nine-cent store. Otherwise Kansas Avenue looked much the same. It was still filthy and decrepit, no place for the Renaissance Mission Congress. But the old clapboard building, still peeling, still deeply tarnished with mildew, did seem peculiarly appropriate for the First American Secular Revivalists.

Jack got out of the car and led Nina into the building that held so many memories for him.

Where there had once been pews and pulpits was now a large work space divided into cubicles by cheap, movable half walls, each equipped with a desk, cordless phone, computer terminal, and the like. A soft murmur of voices filled the area where once a choir had opened up their throats and their hearts to God.

The cubicles were filled by an eclectic army of men and women whose ages Jack judged to be from their early twenties to their late sixties. They all looked extraordinarily busy. Only a young girl glanced up as they went past.

Armitage-and presumably Peter Link-occupied a separate office, what had once been Reverend Myron Taske's rectory. Jack, in the center of the room, looked around. The huge armoire was still against one wall, Taske's battle-scarred desk was opposite, but everything else was different-modern, sleek, gleaming. Maybe it was the new furniture that made the room look so small, Jack thought. Or perhaps it was his memory playing tricks on him. Either way, as in the Langley Fields buildings, Jack felt a dislocation-as if he were both here and not here. He wondered if that was how Emma felt when she appeared in the backseat of his car.

By this time, Armitage was behind his desk. "You said you wanted a list of members who had defected over the last eighteen months."

Jack cleared his throat. "That's right."

Armitage nodded. "I can do that."

His fingertips flew over his computer keyboard, typing in the algorithm that would decrypt the FASR database. A moment later, he was scrolling down a list, cutting and pasting into a new document. He pressed a key, and the printer began to hum. Then it spit out two sheets of paper. Armitage leaned over, pulled them out of the hopper, handed them to Jack.

Jack was aware of Nina very close beside him, leaning in to read the list so easily, so effortlessly, he felt a stab of envy. For him it was a struggle of the first order. He concentrated in the way Reverend Taske had taught him, remembering the three-dimensional letters Taske had made for him, so Jack could feel them, understand their individual nature in order to recognize them in two dimensions, make sense of their sequences. The letters stopped swimming away from him, began to gather like fish around a coral reef. Jack began to read the names, slowly but accurately.

"See anyone you know?" Armitage asked.

Jack, concentrating fully, shook his head.

Nina looked around, said to Armitage, "Honestly, I don't get what you're all about."

"It's not so mysterious, despite what the talking heads on Fox News claim," Armitage said. "I and people like me don't want to live in a 'Christian nation,' we don't want members of the Administration to be anointing themselves with holy oil. Above all, we don't want a president who believes he's doing the will of God. We simply want the freedom to explore the unknown, wherever that might lead."

"Where d'you stand on the human soul?"

"Several leading scientists around the world who are missionary secularists believe that what we call a soul is in fact electrical energy, that when the body dies, that energy lives on. That's one of the mysteries they're trying to solve."

"And God?"

"God is a personal matter, Ms. Miller. Many of us believe absolutely in God, in whatever form. It's not God that we're fighting against. It's what's done in God's name by all the 'systems of religion.'

"Here, let me give you an example from history." He rummaged around his desk until he found a hardcover book titled Marriage of Heaven and Hell. "These are the words of William Blake, the eighteenth-century English visionary:

'All Bibles and sacred codes have been the cause of the following errors:

That man has two really existing principles, viz., a body and a soul.

That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the body, and Reason, called Good, is alone from the soul.

But the following contraries to these are true:

Man has no body distinct from the Soul-for what is called body is that portion of the soul discerned by the five senses…

Energy is the only life, and is from body, and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy.'»

Armitage closed the book, set it aside. "What William Blake is saying is that there is no evil inherent in human beings. I believe him. The story of the poisoned apple from the Tree of Knowledge is a fiction created by men who, from the first, sought power over others by keeping them ignorant."

Nina said, "Still, I don't understand your preoccupation with finding the meaning of things. What if there is no meaning?"

"Keeping yourself in ignorance is the Church's idea," Armitage said calmly. "Knowledge is wisdom, Ms. Miller. Wisdom is power. Power provides individuality."

"It also feeds the ego," Nina said. "An excess of ego breeds chaos."

"Come on." Jack took Nina by the elbow, moved her toward the rectory door. "This guy can debate you until Gabriel comes calling." As he hustled her out the door, he said, "Thanks for your help, Armitage."

"Anytime." Armitage was already back to work, scanning his e-mails.

"I just may take you up on that." Jack closed the door softly behind him.

AS SOON as Jack and Nina left the FASR offices, a young woman in her early twenties got rid of her current call. She was pretty, dark of hair, fair of cheek. In fact, in looks, size, and age she was remarkably similar to the homeless girl Ronnie Kray had picked up off the street for the use of her left hand, the girl who was now moldering in his refrigerator.

The pretty FASR worker dialed a local number. Almost immediately, she heard the familiar male voice on the other end.

"Yes, Calla."

"He just left," Calla said into the receiver.

"You're certain it's him," Kray said.

Calla looked down into the open drawer of her desk. Among the pens, pencils, erasers, paper clips, and spare staples was the small photo of Jack McClure Kray had given her. It had the same flat, slightly grainy look as the photos of Alli Carson that hung on the wall of Kray's house in Anacostia.

"Absolutely," Calla said.

"Tonight. Same time, same place." Kray broke the connection.

TWENTY — SIX"

"DDAMNIT!"

Secretary Dennis Paull rarely lost his temper, but as those who worked closely with him could attest, when he did fly into a rage, it was best to say, "Yessir!" and get out of his way.

"Goddamnit to hell!" The Secretary of Homeland Security had his cell phone jammed so tightly to his head, circulation was being cut off to his ear. "The occupants were roasted alive, then."

He listened intently to the harried voice on the other end of the line. The call had come in just as he was about to go into a debriefing with the POTUS, the Secretary of State, and one of the ranking generals-he forgot who, they all looked, spoke, and thought alike-who had just returned from the successful arm-twisting of the Russian president, Yukin. The POTUS was jubilant. He told Paull to get his fanny over to the West Wing, that they were all going to gorge themselves on beluga caviar, a parting gift from Yukin, who had knuckled under to the president's agenda.

Paull had been on his way to see his wife, not that she would recognize him. But when he failed to see her during the week, his heart broke all over again, and thoughts of their courtship and early years together would flood through him like a riptide, threatening to spin him away on whatever mysterious current had snatched her away from him. For an insane moment, he had contemplated the unthinkable: defying the president, sitting with Louise, holding her hand, willing the puzzlement out of her eyes and mind, willing her back to him. But then his survival instincts, honed by decades inside the Beltway, came to the fore and saved him.

Paull was about to say something but caught himself in time. He was standing on the blue carpet that led to the Oval Office. He was surrounded by polished wood paneling, cream paint, and the hushed sounds of a staff that ran like a well-oiled machine. Like the emanations of magnetic north, he felt the waves of power so close to the Oval Office. He was not fooled, however; the power lay in the office, not in the man who temporarily inhabited it. He strode down the hall, and then ducked into a small room, an extra office that was deserted. His phone was specially designed by the magicians at DARPA, ensuring that his conversations would sound like gibberish to anyone picking up the bandwidth. Nevertheless, he was cautious about his own voice being overheard.

"You're sure they're dead," he said into the phone.

"They had no time to get out," the man on the other end of the line said. "And believe me, no one short of Superman could have survived that blaze."

"How the hell did this happen?"

"The best I can tell, McClure pissed them off. He got on to them; he sicced his ATF pals on them. They couldn't believe it, so they went after him."

Paull rolled his eyes. Why did he have to suffer these incompetents? But he already knew the answer. Incompetents were who this Administration hired. "And," he prompted.

"They got a little overzealous."

Paull had to count to ten before he could say in a low voice, "You call firing handguns on the parkway 'overzealous'? This wasn't a termination mission, for the love of Mike."

Silence on the line.

Paull felt as if his eyes were bugging out of his head. "It sure as hell wasn't a termination mission."

"Sir," the disembodied voice replied, "they sure as hell thought it was."

WHAT ABOUT your car?" Nina said.

Jack drove south on Kansas Avenue. Considering the gray BMW, he thought it best not to be driving his car the rest of the day. "After we're done, you can drop me back here."

"It may be nothing but a burned-out husk by that time," Nina said.

"Or it might not be there at all and I can requisition a new one."

"Har-har." Nina banged down her door lock. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Take a look at the list."

Nina took up the two sheets Armitage had given them, her eyes scrolling down the list of names. "What am I looking for?"

"Known criminals."

"Let's see." Nina ran her forefinger down the list on both sheets. "Nope. Nothing shouts out at me."

Jack made another turn, onto Peabody Street NW. He checked the rearview mirror. He was justifiably paranoid about tails. "Try the second sheet, fourth name from the bottom."

"Joachim Tolkan? What about him?"

"Twenty-five years ago, his father, Cyril, was a notorious criminal in this section of the District." Jack put on some speed. "Ran numbers, drugs, and explosives out of the All Around Town bakery."

Nina laughed. "That's where I get my croissants and coffee. There are maybe a dozen of them throughout the District."

"Back in the day," Jack said, "there was only one."

Perhaps Nina heard something in his tone. "You knew the father, this Cyril Tolkan."

"He murdered someone." Jack slowed as they approached the old tenement, home of the original All Around Town bakery. "Someone close to me."

Nina frowned as Jack pulled to a stop on Fourth Street NW between Kennedy and Jefferson. "This isn't some kind of personal vendetta, is it, because we have no time for extracurricular activities of any nature whatsoever."

Jack was sorely tempted to describe in detail Hugh Garner's manhandling of Peter Link, but decided against it. Instead, he said, "I have a hunch. If it doesn't pan out, I'll drop it and we'll be back to square one."

He knew he was on edge. Why would any of the four order him tailed and attacked? Was it Armitage they wanted silenced? The state of unknowing was not a pleasant one for him. He resisted the urge to call Bennett; he knew the chief would contact him as soon as he had dug up anything of substance.

A bell sounded as they entered the bakery. The place was much as he remembered, full of the delicious swirl of butter, sugar, yeast, baking bread. He remembered in vivid detail the first time Gus had taken him here. In his mind's eye, he could see Cyril's goons standing around, reading the racing forms, waiting for their orders to dispense drugs or weapons, pick up payments, and if the envelope was a little light, to deliver a bloody payment of their own. He remembered the balding man behind the counter who gave him a chocolate-chip cookie. And Cyril himself, with his dark, olive eyes, his Slavic cheekbones, and his sinister air. Today, however, there were only a couple of elderly ladies buying their daily bread. They smiled at him as they walked out with their sweet-smelling purchases.

"Name's Oscar. Can I help you?"

A short, squat man in a baker's apron, with a monkish fringe of hair around the circumference of his milk chocolate scalp and a wide flat nose that must once have been broken regarded them with curious eyes and a welcoming smile. The current All Around Town bakery was a couple of light-years from the shop Cyril Tolkan had presided over.

"I'll take a square of crumb cake." Jack turned to Nina. "And you, sweetheart?"

Nina, unfazed, shook her head.

Jack grinned at Oscar. "The missus is a bit shy in this neighborhood."

"I understand completely." Oscar had a spray of freckles over the flattened bridge of his nose. He placed Jack's crumb cake in a square of paper on the top of the glass case. Addressing Nina, he said, "How about a chocolate-chip cookie?" He picked one out of the pile, held it out. "No one can resist one of our chocolate-chip cookies."

Jack remembered. Even stale it was good.

Nina gave a tight smile, took the cookie.

Jack took out his wallet.

"The cookie's on the house," Oscar said.

Jack thanked him as he paid. He bit into the crumb cake, said, "Delicious." As he chewed, he said, "I wonder if Joachim is around."

Oscar busied himself arranging a tray of linzer tortes. "Friend or business?"

"A little of both."

Oscar seemed to take this nonanswer in stride. "The boss'll be back tomorrow. He's in Miami Beach, for his mother's funeral."

Jack looked around the room, munched on his crumb cake. "You know what time he'll be in?"

"First thing in the morning," Oscar said. "I just got off the phone with him." He took a tray of butter cookies from a thin lad who'd appeared from the oven room. "Any message?"

"No." Jack finished off the crumb cake, brushed his fingertips together. "We'll be back."

Oscar held aloft a couple of cookies. "Something for the road?"

Jack took them.

TWENTY — SEVEN

THE RENAISSANCE Mission Church is more than a place of worship for Jack; it's his schoolhouse. It doesn't take long for Reverend Taske to unearth the root of Jack's reading difficulties. As it happens, he's studied a bit about dyslexia, but now he studies more. Every evening when Jack arrives after work at the Hi-Line, Taske has another idea he's found in some book or other pulled from libraries all over the District.

One evening Jack is particularly frustrated by trying to read a book-this one is of poems by Emily Dickinson. He lashes out, breaks a glass on Reverend Taske's desk. Immediately ashamed, he too-quickly picks up the shards, cuts the edge of his hand. After throwing the glass into the wastepaper basket, he goes over to the armoire, takes out the first aid kit. As he does so, his eye is caught by something on the floor of the armoire. Pushing aside some boxes, he sees what looks like a door.

Just as he's pushing the boxes back in place, Reverend Taske comes in. Within the blink of an eye, he seems to take in the entire scenario. He holds out his hand, and once Jack gives him the first aid kit, gestures for Jack to sit down. He looks at the cut on Jack's hand.

"What happened?"

"I was having trouble reading," Jack said. "I got angry."

Taske searches to make sure no tiny bit of glass has lodged itself in the wound. "The glass means nothing." He begins to disinfect the wound. "But your anger needs tending."

"I'm sorry," Jack says.

"Before you allow your temper to flare, think about why you're angry." Taske bandages the cut, then indicates the armoire. "I expect you're wondering where that trapdoor leads." He regards Jack sternly. "I can trust you, can't I?"

Jack sits up straight. "Yes, sir."

Reverend Taske gives him a wink. "You see, back in the thirties, when liquor was outlawed, these buildings were under the control of bootleggers-people who dealt in illegal liquor. There's a tunnel under here that leads into Gus's back room." He closes up the kit, puts it away. "Now, let's get back to Emily Dickinson."

"I'll never be able to get it," Jack says in despair.

Taske bids him put down the slim volume. "Listen to me, Jack. Your brain is special. It processes things in a way mine can't-in three dimensions." He hands Jack a Rubik's Cube. "The idea here is to get a solid color on each side of the cube. Go on. Give it a try."

As Jack turns the cube, understanding comes to him full-blown, and he manipulates the mind-bending puzzle. He hands the cube back to Taske. Each side is a solid color.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised," Taske says. "All the current literature claims you wouldn't have trouble solving Rubik's puzzle, but four minutes!" He whistles. "No one else I know can solve this, Jack, let alone so quickly."

"Really?"

Taske smiles. "Really."

THOUGH IT'S in a run-down neighborhood that could charitably be called marginal, the Renaissance Mission Church attracts a high level of media coverage and, therefore, attendance from local politicos. This is due to the benevolent work Reverend Taske does, rehabilitating hardened criminals of thirteen or fourteen, turning them into citizens of the District who make tangible contributions to their neighborhood. Taske's admirable goal is to rehab the entire area, not by inviting white entrepreneurs to take over failing black businesses, but by creating black entrepreneurs who have the tools to turn these businesses into moneymaking operations. Unfortunately, in his neighborhood, the businesses that make the most money are those that run numbers, deploy prostitutes, deal drugs. Old habits are hard to break, especially those that have proved painlessly lucrative for their bosses. No schooling is needed, no learning to abide by the laws of the Man. No need to become civilized-or even civil, for that matter. All that's required is muscle, guns, and a pair of brass balls.

That includes Andre. After taking his lumps from his boss, Cyril Tolkan, for beating up on Jack, Andre has moved up Tolkan's crooked corporate ladder with alarming rapidity. Part of his motivation, of course, was to get out of Tolkan's doghouse, but far more worrying is the flame of his ambition, which is burning brighter than even Gus had imagined. Andre never comes to the church anymore, and ever since Reverend Taske returned from Andre's new lair with a black eye and a lacerated cheek, he doesn't even mention his name. Gus, enraged, wanted to go after Andre himself, but Taske wouldn't let him. Jack happens to overhear their conversation early one Sunday morning, which takes place in the rectory, where Jack is laboriously working his way through The Great Gatsby. The novel is interesting because, like Jack himself, Gatsby is an outsider. But it becomes downright fascinating when Jack, thumbing through a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald he takes out of the local library, learns that the author was, like Jack himself, dyslexic.

"I've had enough standin' aside while Andre goes off on ev'rybody," Gus says.

"You just can't abide him taking business from you," Reverend Taske responds.

"Huh! Looka whut he did to you!"

"Occupational hazard," Taske says. "You're not my daddy, Augustus. I can take care of myself."

"By turnin' the other cheek."

"That's how I was taught, Augustus. That's what I believe."

"Whut you believe ain't nuthin' but a jackass's brayin'."

Jack sucks in his breath. He is compelled to get up, creep down the hall, put his eye to the crack between door and jamb he makes by pulling with his fingertips. In his limited line of vision, the Reverend Taske is eclipsed by Gus's planetary shape.

"Because your ire is up, I'm going to ignore your insult to me, Augustus, but I can't overlook your blasphemy toward God. When we're done, I want you to make penance."

"Not today, Reverend. I gots no truck with turnin' the other cheek. Moment I knuckle to that, I'm shit outta business. You-all gonna tell me that if I don't do fo' myself, God will?"

"I am concerned for your immortal soul, Augustus," Taske says slowly and carefully.

"Huh, you best be concerned with things that matter, like whut you gonna do 'bout expenses round here now that yo' famous bank vice president got indicted for embezzlement. Reg'lators gone pulled the plug on all his deals, including the one that's been keeping this place afloat fo' three years."

Jack hears the creak of a chair, figures the reverend has sat heavily down. "You do have a point there, Augustus."

"Now, you know I make a lotta money, Reverend, an' I'll give you as much as I can."

"The church isn't here to drain you of every penny you make."

"Still an' all," Gus perseveres, "whatever I can muster won't be enough. You gotta think long-term."

"If you have a suggestion," Taske says.

It's at that point that Jack knocks on the door. There is a short startled silence, at the end of which Taske's voice bids Jack enter.

Jack stands in the doorway until the reverend beckons him into the room. "What can I do for you, Jack? Having trouble decoding Fitzgerald's prose?"

"It's not that." Jack is for a moment at a loss for words. Taske looks weary, older. Why hasn't he noticed this before? Jack asks himself.

"Augustus and I are in the middle of a discussion, Jack," Taske says kindly.

"I know, that's why I came in."

"Oh?"

"I couldn't help overhearing."

"Huh, you betta close that door good," Gus says, "so you the on'y one."

Jack shuts the door firmly, turns around. "I heard about the money crisis."

"That's none o' yo' business," Gus says darkly.

"I think I have a way out," Jack says.

The two men seem to hang suspended between disbelief and raucous laughter. The thought that a fifteen-year-old has seen a way out of the fiscal quicksand the Renaissance Mission Church has unceremoniously found itself in is, on the face of it, ludicrous. Except, as both men know, each in his own way, this is Jack-and Jack is capable of extraordinary leaps of logic that are beyond either of them.

So Taske says, "Go ahead, Jack. We're listening."

"I was thinking of Senator Edward Carson."

Taske frowns. "What about him, son?"

"He was here last week," Jack says. "I read the papers-you assign me to do that every day, and I do."

Taske smiles. "I know you do."

"I noticed that Senator Carson got a lot of great press out of his visit here. He even spent some time with the parishioners before and after the service. He said he used to sing in his choir back home in Nebraska. I heard him accept your invitation to sing with our choir today."

"All true," Taske agrees. "What exactly is your point, Jack?"

"There's an election coming up this fall. Senator Carson's campaign war chest is big. According to the papers, he's the party's great future hope. The bigwigs are rumored to be grooming him to run for president one day. Him being here last week and this, I think the rumor's true. But to make a successful run, he's going to need every vote he can get. Last time I looked, there weren't too many blacks living in Nebraska, which is where the Renaissance Mission Church comes in."

"Huh. Sounds like the kid's on to sumthin'," Gus says. "Yes, indeed."

Taske's mouth is half-open. Jack can just about see the gears mesh in his mind, the wheels begin to turn.

"I don't believe it," Taske says at length. "You want me to offer him votes for funding."

Jack nods.

"But we're one small community church."

"Today you are," Jack says. "That's the beauty of the idea. You're always talking about expanding beyond the neighborhood. This is your chance. With Senator Carson's backing, the Renaissance Mission Church could go regional, then national. By the time he's ready to make his run at the presidency, you'll be in position to offer him the kind of help he'll need most."

Gus laughs. "This here boy thinks as big as the sky."

"Yes," Taske says slowly, "but he has a point."

"Carson's gotta go for it," Gus cautions.

"Why won't he?" Jack says. "He's a successful politician. His livelihood depends on him making deals, accommodations, alliances. Think about it. There's no downside for him. Even if you should fail, Reverend, he gets a ton of national press for helping a minority raise itself off its knees."

"Jack's right. The idea makes perfect sense," Taske says. He's chewing over the idea, looking at it from all angles. "And what's more, it just might work!" Then he slams his palms down on the desk as he jumps up. "I knew it! The good Lord bringing you to us was a miracle!"

"Here we go," Gus growls, but Jack can see he's as proud of Jack as Taske is.

"My boy, who would have thought of this but you?" The Reverend Myron Taske takes Jack's hand, pumps it enthusiastically. "I think you just might have saved us all."

TWENTY — EIGHT

LYN CARSON stood at the bedroom window of the suite high up in the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Dusk was extinguishing the daylight, like a mother snuffing out candles one by one. Ribbons of lights moved along Massachusetts Avenue, and the skeletal structure of the Connecticut Avenue Bridge was lit by floodlights. She and her husband were here for a few days to escape the depressing reality that each hour of each day pressed more heavily in on them.

Alli was somewhere out there. Lyn tried willing her into being, to stand here, safe beside her.

Hearing Edward moving about in the sitting room, she turned. She knew why he liked this storied hotel above all others in the District. Though its architecture was blunt to the point of being downright ugly, it was downstairs in room 406D that Harry Truman, whom Edward so admired, had often come to play poker with his friends Senator Stewart Symington, Speaker of the House John McCormack, and Doorkeeper of the House Fishbait Miller.

Just then, her husband's cell phone rang and her heart leapt into her throat. My Alli, my darling, she thought, running through the open doorway. Her thoughts swung wildly: They've found her, she's dead, oh my God in Heaven, let it be good news!

But she stopped short when Edward, seeing the look on her face, gave her a quick shake of his head. No, it wasn't news of Alli, after all. Churning with disappointment and relief, Lyn turned away, stumbled back to the sitting room, half-blinded by tears. Where are you, darling? What have they done to you?

She stood by the window, watching with a kind of irrational fury the indifferent world. How could people laugh, how could they be driving to dinner, having parties, making love, how could they be out jogging, or meeting under a lamppost. How could they be carefree when the world was so filled with dread? What was wrong with them?

She clasped her palms together in front of her breast. Dear God, she prayed for the ten-thousandth time, please give Alli the strength to survive. Please give Jack McClure the energy and wisdom to find her. God, give my precious daughter back to me, and I'll sacrifice anything. Whatever you want from me I'll gladly give, and more. You are the Power and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.

Just then she felt Edward's strong arms around her, and her shell of toughness-hard but brittle-shattered to pieces. Tears welled out of her eyes and a sob was drawn up from the depths of her. She turned into his chest, weeping uncontrollably as black thoughts rolled through her mind like thunderheads.

Edward Carson held her tight, kissed the top of her head. His own eyes welled with tears of despair and frustration. "That was Jack. No news yet, but he's making progress."

Lyn made a little sound-half gasp, half moan-at the back of her throat.

"Alli's a strong girl, she'll be all right." He stroked her back, soothing them both. "Jack will find her."

"I know he will."

They stood like that for a long time, above their own Washington, the world at their feet, the taste of ashes in their mouths. And yet their hearts beat strongly together, and where hearts were strong, they knew, there was fight yet left. There was hope. Hope and faith.

A sharp rap on the door to the sitting room caused them both to start.

"It's okay." Edward Carson kissed her lightly on the lips. "Rest a little now before dinner."

She nodded, watched him cross the bedroom, close the connecting door behind him. Rest, she thought. How does one rest with a heart full of dread?

THE PRESIDENT-ELECT pulled the door open, stood aside so Dennis Paull could enter, then shut and locked it behind him.

"Nina delivered your message," Carson said.

"The Secret Service agents outside?"

"Absolutely secure. You can take that to the bank." He walked over to a sideboard. "Drink?"

"Nothing better." Paull sat on a sofa that faced the astonishing view. "What I like most about flying is that you're so high up, there's nothing but sky. No woes, no uncertainty, no fears."

He accepted the single-malt with a nod of thanks. Carson had no need of asking what Paull drank. The two men had known each other for many years, long before the current president had been elected to his first term. Two years into that first term, when Paull had been faced with carrying out yet another semi-legal directive he found personally abhorrent, he was faced with a professional dilemma. He might have tendered his resignation, but instead he'd gone to see Edward Carson. In hindsight, of course, Paull understood that he'd already made his choice, which was far more difficult and dangerous than simply throwing in the towel. He'd decided to stay on, to fight for the America he believed in in every way he could. His plan began with the alliance he and Edward Carson formed.

This was surprisingly easy. The two men held the same vision for America, which included returning the country to a healthy separation of church and state. Though fiscal conservatives, they were moderates in virtually every other area. They both disliked partisan politics and despised political hacks. They wanted to get on with things without being encumbered with pork barrel politics. They wanted to mend fences overseas, to try to undo the image of America as bully and warmonger. They wanted their country to be part of the world, separated from it only by oceans. At heart, each in his own way, had come to the same inescapable conclusion: America was at a critical crossroads. The country had to be healed. To do that, it had to be resurrected from the little death of the current administration's policies. Otherwise, intimidation, divisiveness, and fear would be the legacy of the last eight years.

Neither of them was a starry-eyed idealist; in fact, over the years, they'd each brokered difficult deals, made compromises, some of them painful, in order to achieve their goals. But both did believe that the country was on the wrong path and needed to be set right. So they had agreed. Whenever he could, Paull would secretly work against the Administration's weakening of democratic freedoms, and in return, Edward Carson would name him Secretary of Defense.

The two men sat in what under other circumstances would have been a comfortable silence. But between them now was the specter of Alli's abduction and possible death.

"How are you two holding up?" Paull had noticed the president-elect's reddened eyes the moment he walked through the door.

"As well as can be expected. Any news from Jack?"

"Jack is doing everything he can, I've made certain of that," Paull said. "And he's protected."

"Protected." Carson's head swung around. "From who?"

Paull stared down into the amber drink, watching the light play off the surface. Only amateurs drank single-malt with ice. "I'd like to say I knew for certain, but I don't."

"Give me the next best thing, then."

Paull had been told that no bodies had been found in the wreck, which meant that Jack had somehow survived the attack. He thought for a moment. "The knives are out. All signs point to the National Security Advisor." He lifted his eyes. "Trouble is, I suspect he's not in it alone."

Paull, staring into the president-elect's eyes, knew Carson understood he'd meant the president.

After a moment, Carson said very deliberately, "Can you get proof?"

Paull shook his head. "Not before January twentieth. Given time, I think I'll be able to find a chink in the National Security Advisor's armor, but I very much doubt I'll get further."

Maintaining plausible deniability was any president's first priority, his most potent line of defense. Carson nodded, sipped his drink. "Getting one will have to suffice, then. It'll be your first order of business come January twenty-first."

"Believe me, it'll be a pleasure."

The ship's clock on the mantel chimed in the new hour. Time lay heavy on Edward Carson's shoulders.

"Look at them down there, Dennis. It's that hour when the workday is over, when everyone lets out a sigh of relief on their way home. But for me, does evening bring darkness, or the end of my daughter's life?"

"Do you believe in God, sir?"

The president-elect nodded. "I do."

"Then for you everything will be all right, won't it?"

IT WAS late when Nina dropped Jack off. His car, windshield replaced, was waiting for him at the lot of the repair shop. Jack climbed into it warily as well as wearily. He felt as if he'd been beaten with a nightstick for the past few days. Had he slept in all that time? He couldn't remember. He opened a bottle of water, drank it all down in one long swallow. Speaking of essential functions, apart from the crumb bun he'd wolfed down, when had he last eaten? He vaguely recalled scarfing down an Egg McMuffin, but whether that was this morning or yesterday, he couldn't say.

It occurred to him that he was hungry. He held the sugar cookies from the All Around Town bakery in his hand, but he didn't eat them.

Instead, he methodically checked out the environment. He was looking for another Dark Car. No word yet from Bennett on who had sent out the first one. He didn't know whether that was good news or bad news. He was almost too tired to care.

Finally, he admitted to himself that what he really wanted to do was look in the backseat to see if Emma had magically appeared once more. A flicker of his eyes told him that he was alone in the car. He set the sugar cookies on the seat beside him. An offering or an enticement?

"Emma," he heard himself say, "are you ever coming back?"

He was appalled at the sound of his own voice. Frightened, too. What was happening to him? Was he cracking up? Surely he hadn't seen Emma, surely he hadn't heard her voice. Then what had he seen, what had he heard? Was it all in his head?

All of a sudden, these questions were too big for him. He felt that if he sat with them any longer, his head would explode. He started the car, headed for Sharon's. She lived in a modest house, one of many identical in shape and size, in Arlington Heights. It took him thirty-five minutes to get there. During that time, he had ample opportunity to make sure an Audi or a Mercedes hadn't taken the place of the gray BMW.

The lights were on when he pulled into the driveway, and now that he thought about it, he didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing. Before he left the car, he checked to see if the cookies had been eaten. They lay against the crease where the seat met the back. They looked sad, forlorn, as if they knew no one would enjoy them. Jack, halfway out of the car, licked his forefinger, picked up a small constellation of crumbs that had formed around the cookies, let them melt on his tongue. He could feel the tears well hotly, so close did he feel to Emma.

He rang the bell, his heart hammering in his chest. Sharon pulled the door open. The scent of chicken and rice wafted out with her, making his mouth water. She regarded him with an unreadable expression. She wore a skirt that clung to her thighs, a sleeveless blouse that showed off her beautiful golden shoulders. Nina would have appeared pale and wan beside her, anorectic instead of willowy. She said nothing for a moment.

"Jack, are you okay?"

"Yeah, sure, it's just that I can't remember the last time I had a decent meal."

"You were on your own so long, I often wondered why you never learned to cook for yourself."

"The tyranny of shopping makes me anxious."

She gave him a tentative smile as she moved aside so he could enter.

Jack closed the door behind him. He took off his overcoat, slung it over the back of the living room sofa. Unlike the old house with its familiar creaking he'd moved into when they split, Sharon preferred a modern place. She had busied herself repainting walls in colors she chose, picking out warm carpets, filling each room not only with furniture but accessories as well-scented candles, a log cabin quilt hanging on the wall, small dishes filled with lacquered shells and gaily striped marbles. No unicorns, thankfully, but a variety of other knickknacks and souvenirs, along with keepsakes and photos of Emma and Sharon as a child in handmade frames. None of this, however, made up for the house's complete lack of character. Unlike his house, it was a two-story box to live in, nothing more. He found being here disorienting and overwhelming. He'd never get used to Sharon living here, living without him.

What did he have of Emma's? He thought of her iPod, pushed to the back of his ATF locker. One night he took it home and couldn't sleep. Then again, he must have because at one point he started up from a horrific dream of standing paralyzed and mute as Emma's car hurtled into the tree. He could hear the crack of the wood, the explosion of glass, see the twists of metal spiraling inward. The car door snapped open, and a shape already curled in death shot out, struck him full in the chest. Then he was sitting up in bed, screaming and shivering, sweat pouring off him like rain. He spent what was left of the night commiserating with Nick Carraway in the pages of his beloved, tattered copy of The Great Gatsby, and was never so glad to see the first blush of dawn turn the darkness gold.

IN SHARON'S new digs, he picked up one of the photos of Emma, but the image seemed flat and empty, a shell of what once had been a vibrant and mysterious girl. As for photos of other people in Sharon's life, he knew there would be none.

Sharon had no past, and so couldn't understand what appeal it could possibly hold for Jack. She had parents, but she never saw or spoke to them. A brother, as well, in Rotterdam, where he was an international lawyer. For reasons he'd never been able to fathom, Sharon had cut herself off from her family, her past. When they were dating, she told him that she had no family, but after they were married, he found photos in the trash, spilled out of an old cigar box. Her mother, father, and brother.

"They're dead to me," she'd said when he'd confronted her. She'd never allowed the subject to come up again.

Did that mean, he often wondered, that Sharon didn't dream? Because he dreamed only of his past, iterations of it with intended outcomes, or not, bizarre twists and turns that he often remembered after he awoke, and laughed at or puzzled over. It seemed to him that there was a richness in life that came with the years, that only your past could provide. It was unbearable to him to think, as Schopenhauer had written, that no honest man comes to the end of his life wanting to relive it. But it seemed possible to him that Sharon believed just that, that her erasing of her past was an attempt to relive her life.

He put the photo back, turned away, but his mood didn't improve. The house's aggressive homeyness produced a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. As for his heart, it had gone numb the moment she appeared at the door.

Below her short skirt, Sharon wore little pink ballet slippers with teeny bows and paper-thin soles. They made her movements around the house elegant and silent, even on the hard tile of the kitchen floor. No matter which way you looked at them, her legs were magnificent. Jack tried not to stare, but it was like asking a moth to ignore a flame.

Sharon opened a glass-fronted cabinet over the sink, stretched up to reach a pair of stemmed glasses. Her figure was highlighted in such a way that Jack felt the need to sit down.

She uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured. "Fortunately, I made enough food for two."

"Uh-huh," was all he could muster because he'd bitten back one of his acerbic replies.

She brought the glasses over, handed him one. "What?"

"What what?"

She pulled a chair out, sat down at a right angle to him. "I know that look."

"What look?" Why all of a sudden did he feel like a felon?

"The 'Baby, let's get it on' look."

"I was just admiring your legs."

She got up, took her wineglass to the stove. She stirred a pot, checked the chicken in the oven. "Why didn't you say that when we were married?" Her voice was more rueful than angry.

Jack waited until she paused to take a sip of wine before he said, "When we were married, I was embarrassed by how beautiful you are."

She spun around. "Come again?"

"You know how you see a hot movie star-"

Her face grew dark. "Where do you live, Beverly Hills?"

"I'm talking about a fantasy figure, Shar. Don't tell me you don't have fantasies about-"

"Clive Owen, if you must know." She took the bird out, set it aside to allow the juices to settle. "Go on."

"Okay, so I'm alone with… Scarlett Johansson."

Sharon rolled her eyes. "Dream on, buddy."

"I'm alone with her in my mind," Jack persevered, "but when I try to-you know-nothing happens."

She dumped the rice into a serving bowl. "Now that's just not you."

"Right, not when I'm with you. But Scarlett, when I think about her-really think about her-well, it's too much. I'm wondering why the hell a goddess like that would be with me. Then the fantasy goes up in smoke."

She stared intently at the steaming rice. Her cheeks were flushed. After a time, she seemed to find her voice. "You think I'm as beautiful as Scarlett Johansson?"

If he said yes, what would she do? He didn't know, so he said nothing, even when she turned her head to look at him. Instead, he got up, rather clumsily, and helped her serve the food.

They sank back down into their respective chairs. Wordlessly, she handed him the carving utensils and wordlessly he took them, parting the breast from the bony carcass, as he always did. Sharon served them both, first slices of the chicken, then heaping spoonfuls of rice, and broccoli with oil and garlic. They ate in a fog of self-conscious silence, sinking deeper and deeper into their own thoughts.

Finally, Sharon said, "You're feeling okay now?"

Jack nodded. "Fine."

"I thought…" She put her fork down. She'd hardly eaten anything. "I thought maybe after the hospital you might call."

"I wanted to," Jack said, not sure that was the truth. "There's something I want to tell you."

Sharon settled in her chair. "All right."

"It's about Emma."

She reacted as if he'd shot her. "I don't-!"

"Just let me-" He held up his hands. "Please, Shar, just let me say what I have to say."

"I've heard everything you need to say about Emma."

"Not this you haven't." He took a deep breath, let it out. He wanted to tell her, and he didn't. But this time seemed as good as any-better, in fact, than any of their recent meetings. "The fact is-" He seemed to have lost his voice. He cleared his throat. "-I've seen Emma."

"What!"

"I've seen her a number of times in the past week." Jack rushed on at breakneck speed, lest he lose his nerve. "The last time she was sitting in the backseat of my car. She said, 'Dad.'»

Sharon's expression told him that he'd made a terrible mistake.

"Are you insane?" she shouted.

"I tell you I saw her. I heard her-"

She jumped up. "Our daughter's dead, Jack! She's dead!"

"I'm not saying-"

"Oh, you're despicable!" Her brows knit together ominously. "This is your way of trying to weasel out of your responsibility for Emma's death."

"This isn't about responsibility, Shar. It's about trying to understand-"

"I knew you were desperate to crawl out from under your guilt." Her wildly gesticulating hands knocked over her wineglass. Then she deliberately knocked over his. "I just didn't know how desperate."

Jack was on his feet. "Shar, would you calm down a minute? You're not listening to me."

"Get out of here, Jack!"

"C'mon, don't do that."

"I said get out!"

She advanced and he retreated, past the seashells and the colored glass, the postcards Emma had sent to them from school, the photos of her as a child. He scooped up his coat.

"Sharon, you've misunderstood everything."

This, of course, was the worst thing he could have said. She flew at him with raised fists, and he backed out the front door so quickly that he stumbled over the top step. She got to slam the door on him once again. Then all the downstairs lights were extinguished and he knew she was sitting, curled up, fists on thighs, sobbing uncontrollably.

He took a convulsive step up, raised his fist to hammer on the door, but his hand flattened out, palm resting on the door as if by that gesture he could feel her presence. Then he turned, went heavily down the steps, returned to his car.

TWENTY — NINE

JACK THOUGHT he was heading home, but instead he found himself pulling into Egon Schiltz's driveway right behind Candy Schiltz's Audi A4 Avant wagon. He got out, walked to the front door, pushed the bell. If Sharon wouldn't talk to him about Emma, maybe Egon would. Jack checked his watch. It was late enough that he was sure to be home by now.

Schiltz lived in the Olde Sleepy Hollow area of Falls Church. His house was a neat two-story colonial the family had lived in for decades. Schiltz had paid just north of $100,000 for it. Back in the day, that wasn't exactly cheap, but these days it was worth conservatively fifteen times that.

Molly came to the door, gave an excited shriek as he whirled her up and around.

"Molly Maria Schiltz, what is going on!"

Candy came bursting into the entryway, but as soon as she saw Jack, the look of concern on her face changed to a broad smile.

"Jack McClure, well, it's been too long!" she said with genuine pleasure.

He kissed her on the cheek as Taffy, their Irish setter, came bounding in, tongue lolling, tail wagging furiously.

"We've finished dinner," Candy said, "but there's plenty of leftovers."

"I just ate, thanks," Jack said.

While he and Candy went into the family room, Molly trooped upstairs to do her homework.

"I have cherry pie," Candy said with a twinkle in her eye. "Your favorite, if memory serves."

Jack laughed despite his black mood. "Nothing wrong with your memory."

Seeing no way out, he allowed her to bustle around the open kitchen, Taffy happily trotting at her heels. She was a statuesque woman with ash-blond hair and a wide, open face. In her youth, she'd been a real beauty. Now, in later middle age, she possessed a different kind of beauty, as well as an enviable serenity. She cut a slice of pie as generous as her figure, took a bowl of homemade whipped cream out of the refrigerator, piled on a huge dollop.

"Milk or coffee?" she said as she plunked the plate and fork down on the pass-through. Taffy came around, sat on her haunches, her long, clever face turned up to Jack.

"Coffee, please." Jack rubbed Taffy's forehead with his knuckles, and the dog growled in pleasure. He picked up the fork. "How many people is this portion supposed to feed?"

Candy, pouring his coffee into a mug she herself had made in pottery class, giggled. "I can't help it if I still consider you a growing boy, Jack." She padded over with the mug. She remembered he liked his coffee straight. "Anyway, you're looking far too gaunt to suit me." She put a hand over his briefly. "Are you getting along all right?"

Jack nodded. "I'm doing fine."

Candy's expression indicated she didn't believe him. "You should come over here more often. Egon misses you." She indicated with her head. "So does Good Golly Miss Molly."

"Molly's grown up. She's got her own friends now."

Candy pulled a mock face. "D'you think she'd ever stop loving her uncle Jack? Shame on you. That's not how this family works."

Jack felt as if he were dying inside. Here was a picture of his own family life… if only so many things had happened differently. "The pie's delicious." He smacked his lips. "Is Egon upstairs? I'd like a minute of his time."

"Unfortunately, no," she said. "He called to say he was staying extra late at the morgue, some kind of hush-hush government case. But you should go on over there. He'll be happy for the company. And you know Egon, he can lend an ear with the best of them."

Candy flattened down the front of her dress. "I wish you and Sharon would patch things up."

Jack stared down at the remains of crust. "Well, you know how it is."

"No, I don't," Candy said rather firmly. "You love each other. It's obvious even to a nonromantic like my Egon."

Jack sighed. "I don't know about love, but Sharon doesn't like me very much right now. Maybe she never will again."

"That's just defeatist talk, my dear." Candy put away the pie and washed the whipped cream bowl. "Everything changes. All marriages survive if both of you want it to." She dried her hands on a green-and-white-striped dish towel. "You've got to work at it."

Jack looked up. "Do you and Egon work at it?"

"Goodness, yes." Candy came over, leaned on the pass-through. "We've had our ups and downs just like everyone else, I daresay. But the essential thing is that we both want the same thing-to be together." She looked at him with her wise eyes. "That's what you want, isn't it, to be with her?"

Jack nodded mutely.

Candy pushed the plate aside and began to shoo him out of the family room. Taffy barked unhappily. "Go on now." She kissed him warmly. "Go see my man, and I hope he makes you feel better."

"Thanks, Candy."

She stood at the door. "You can thank me by showing up on my doorstep more often."

QUIET AS a morgue, Jack thought as he entered the ME's office. In times past, that little joke would have put a smile on his face, but not tonight. He walked down the deserted corridors, hearing only the soft draw of the massive air conditioners. There was a mug half-filled with coffee on Schiltz's desk, but no sign of the man himself. The mug was inscribed with the phrase WORLD'S BEST DAD, a years-ago present from Molly. Jack put his finger into the coffee, found it still warm. His friend was here somewhere.

The autopsy room was similarly still. All the coldly gleaming chrome and stainless steel made it look like Dr. Frankenstein's lab. All that was needed were a couple of bolts of lightning. A dim glow came from the cold room. Jack stood on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He remembered the time he'd taken Emma here. She was writing a paper on forensic medicine during the year the vocation had fired her interest. He'd been here many times, but he found it enlightening to see it through her eager, young eyes. Egon had met them, taken them around, explained everything, answered Emma's seemingly endless questions. But when she said, "Why does God allow people to be murdered?" Egon shook his head and said, "If I knew that, kiddo, I'd know everything."

Jack saw that one of the cold slabs had been drawn out of the wall. No doubt holding part of the hush-hush work that chained Egon to the office so late at night. Jack stepped forward, was on the point of calling out Egon's name when he heard the noises. It sounded as if the entire cold room had come alive and was breathing heavily. Then he saw Egon.

He was on the cold slab, lying facedown on top of Ami, his assistant. He was naked and so was she. Their rhythmic movements acid-etched the true nature of Egon's hush-hush work onto Jack's brain.

Jack, his mind in a fog, stood rooted for a moment. He struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, but it was like trying to digest a ten-pound steak. It just wasn't going to happen.

On stiff legs, he backed out of the cold room, turned, and went back down the corridor to Egon's office. Plunking himself into Egon's chair, he stared at the coffee. Well, that wasn't going to do it. He pawed through the desk drawers until he found Egon's pint of single-barrel bourbon, poured three fingers' worth into the coffee. He put the mug to his lips and drank the brew down without even wincing. Then he sat back.

For Egon Schiltz-family man, churchgoing, God-fearing fundamentalist-to be schtupping a cookie on the side was unthinkable. What would God say, for God's sake? Another of Jack's little jokes that tonight failed to bring a smile to his face. Or joy to his heart, which now seemed to be a dead cinder lying at the bottom of some forgotten dust heap.

He thought about leaving before Egon came back and saw that his "hush-hush work" was now an open secret, but he couldn't get his body to move. He took another slug of the single-barrel, reasoning that it might help, but it only served to root him more firmly in the chair.

And then it was too late. He heard the familiar footsteps coming down the corridor, and then Egon appeared. He stopped short the moment he saw Jack, and unconsciously ran a hand through his tousled hair.

"Jack, this is a surprise!"

I'll bet it is, Jack thought. "Guess where I just came from, Egon?"

Schiltz spread his hands, shook his head.

"How about a clue, then? I was just treated to the best cherry pie on God's green earth." Was that a tremor at the left side of Schiltz's head? "And speaking of God…"

"You know."

"I saw."

Schiltz hid his face in his hands.

"How long?"

"Six months."

Jack stood up. "I just… what the hell's the matter with you?"

"I was… tempted."

"Tempted?" Jack echoed hotly. "Doesn't the Bible tell us again and again, ad nauseam, how God deals with the tempted? Doesn't the Bible teach you to be strong morally, to resist temptation?"

"Those… people didn't have Ami working next to them every day."

"Wait a minute, if that's your excuse, you're nothing but a hypocrite."

Schiltz was visibly shaken. "I'm not a hypocrite, Jack. You know me better than that." He sank into a visitor's chair. "I'm a man, with a man's foibles." He glanced up, and for a moment a certain fire burned in his eyes. "I make mistakes just like everyone else, Jack. But my belief in God, in the morals he gave us, hasn't changed."

Jack spread his arms wide. "Then how do you explain this?"

"I can't." Schiltz hung his head.

Jack shook his head. "You want to cheat on Candy, go right ahead, I'm the last person to stop you. Except I know from personal experience how affairs fuck up marriages, how they poison the love one person has for another, how there's no hope of going back to the love."

Schiltz, elbows on knees, looked up at him bleakly. "Don't say that," he whispered.

"Another truth you don't want to hear." Jack came around the desk. "If you want to risk a broken marriage, who the hell am I to stop you, Egon? That's not why I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off because you go to church every Sunday with your family, you're pious and righteous-you denounce so-called sexual degenerates, ridicule politicians-especially Democrats-who've had affairs exposed. It's been easy for you to identify sinners from your high pedestal. But I wonder how easy it'll be now. You're not one of God's chosen, Egon. By your actions-by your own admission-you're just one of us sinners."

Egon sighed. "You're right, of course. I deserve every epithet you hurl at me. But, my God, I love Candy, you have to know that. I'd rather cut off my right arm than hurt her."

"I feel the same way, so don't worry. I'm not going to tell her."

"Well, I'm grateful for that. Thank you, Jack."

An awkward silence fell over them.

"Weren't you ever tempted, Jack?"

"What does it matter? This is about you, Egon. You and Candy, when you get right down to it. You can't have her and Ami, too, because if you do, you'll never be able to hold your head up in church again. I doubt even God would forgive that sin."

"Feet of clay." Schiltz nodded. "I've been laid low."

There was a rustling in the corridor and a moment later Ami entered, a clipboard in one hand, a pen in the other. She froze when she saw Jack. "Oh, I didn't know you were here, Mr. McClure."

"You must have been away from your desk." Jack saw her eyes flicker.

She was about to hand her boss the clipboard when she saw his stricken face. "Is everything all right, Dr. Schiltz?"

"Egon," Jack said. "You should call him Egon."

Ami took one look at Jack, then at Schiltz's face, and fled the room.

"Go on, make jokes at my expense, Jack." Schiltz shook his head ruefully. "God will forgive me."

"Is this the same god that was supposed to look after Candy, or Emma?"

I REMEMBER," Schiltz said. "I remember when everything was different, simpler."

"Now you sound like an old man," Jack said.

"Tonight I feel old." Schiltz sipped his bourbon and made a face. It wasn't single-barrel or anything close.

They were sitting in a late-night bar off Braddock Avenue, not far from the office. It was attached to a motel. While the interior was not quite so seedy as the motel itself, the clientele was a whole lot seedier. A low ceiling with plastic beams, sixty-watt bulbs further dimmed by dusty green-glass shades, torn vinyl-covered banquettes, a jukebox ringing out Muddy Waters and B. B. King tended to attract a fringe element right at home with the bleak dislocation of midnight with nowhere to go, no one to be with.

"Think of your daughter, then."

Schiltz shook his head. "I can't think of Molly without thinking of Emma."

"Actually, it's Emma I came to see you about," Jack said.

Schiltz's face brightened considerably.

"It's something… well, something I can't explain."

Schiltz leaned forward. "Tell me."

Jack took a deep breath. "I'm seeing Emma."

"What d'you mean?"

"I heard her talk to me from the backseat of my car."

"Jack-"

"She said, 'Dad.' I heard her as clearly as I'm hearing you."

"Listen to me now, Jack. I've heard of these manifestations before. Actually, they're not uncommon. You think you're seeing Emma because your guilt is too much to bear. You feel you're complicit in the tragedy, that if you'd been able to pay more attention-" Schiltz held up a hand. "But we've been over all that too many times already. I'm genuinely sorry that nothing's changed for you, Jack."

"So you don't believe me, either."

"I didn't say that. I fervently believe that you saw Emma, that she spoke to you, but it was all in your head." Schiltz took a breath. "We die, we go to heaven… or to hell. There are no ghosts, no wandering spirits."

"How d'you know?"

"I know the Bible, Jack. I know the word of God. Spiritualism is a game for charlatans. They play on the guilt and the desperate desire of the grieving to speak to their loved ones who've passed on."

"It isn't just life and death, Egon. There's something more, something we can't see or feel. Something unknown."

"Yes, there is," Schiltz said softly. "His name is God."

Jack shook his head. "This is beyond God, or the Bible, or even his laws."

"You can't believe that."

"How can you not even accept the possibility that there's something out there-something unknowable-that isn't God-based?"

"Because everything is God-based, Jack. You, me, the world, the universe."

"Except that Emma's appearance doesn't fit into your God-based universe."

"Of course it does, Jack." Schiltz drained his glass. "As I said, she's a manifestation of your insupportable grief."

"And if you're wrong?"

Schiltz presented him with an indulgent smile. "I'm not."

"See, that's what I think gets you religious guys in trouble. You're so damn sure of yourselves about all these issues that can't be proved."

"That's faith, Jack." Egon ordered them another round. "There's no more powerful belief system in the world."

Jack waited while the bourbons were set in front of them, the empty glasses taken away.

"It's comforting to have faith, to know there's a plan."

Schiltz nodded. "Indeed it is."

"So if something bad happens-like, for instance, your nineteen-year-old daughter running her car into a tree and dying-you don't have to think. You can just say, well, that's part of the plan. I don't know what that plan is, I can't ever know, but, heck, it's there, all right. My daughter's death had meaning because it was part of the plan."

Schiltz cleared his throat. "That's putting it a bit baldly, but, yes, that's essentially correct."

Jack set aside the raw-tasting bourbon. He'd had more than enough liquor for one night.

"Let me ask you something, Egon. Who in their right mind wants a fucked-up plan like that?"

Schiltz clucked his tongue. "Now you sound like one of those missionary secularists."

"I'm disappointed but hardly surprised to hear you say that." Jack made interlocking rings on the table with the bottom of his glass. "Because I'm certainly not a missionary secularist."

"Okay. Right now because of Emma's death you're cut off from God."

"Oh, I was cut off from that branch of thinking a long time ago," Jack said. "Now I'm beginning to think there's another way, a third alternative."

"Either you believe in God or you don't," Schiltz said. "There's no middle ground."

Jack looked at his friend. They'd spent so many years dancing around this topic, holding it at bay for the sake of their friendship. But a line had been crossed tonight, he felt, from which there was no turning back. "No room for debate, no movement from beliefs written in stone."

"The Ten Commandments were written in stone," Schiltz pointed out, "and for a very good reason."

"Didn't Moses break the tablets?"

"Stop it, Jack." Schiltz called for the check. "This is leading us nowhere."

Which, Jack thought, was precisely the problem. "So what happens now?" he said.

"Frankly, I don't know."

Schiltz stared into the middle distance, where a couple of dateless women who had given up for the night were dancing with each other while Elvis crooned "Don't Be Cruel."

His eyes slowly drew into themselves and he focused on Jack. "The truth is, I'm afraid to go home. I'm afraid of what Candy would do if she found out, afraid of the disgrace I'd come under in my church. I can tell you there are friends of mine who'd never talk to me again."

Jack waited a moment to gather his thoughts. He was mildly surprised to learn that whatever anger he'd felt toward Egon had burned itself out with the bourbon they'd thrown down their throats. The truth was, he felt sad.

"I wish I could help you with all that," Jack said.

Schiltz put up a hand. "My sin, my burden."

"What I can offer is another perspective. What's happened tonight is a living, breathing test of your iron-bound faith. You live within certain religious and moral lines, Egon. They allow for no deviation or justification. But you can't fall back on any religious fiction. God didn't tell you to have an affair with Ami, and neither did the devil. It was you, Egon. You made the conscious choice, you crossed a line you're forbidden to cross."

Schiltz shook his head wearily. "Would Candy forgive me? I just don't know."

"When I saw her earlier tonight, she told me in no uncertain terms just how strong your love is for each other. You've been through bad patches before, Egon, and you've managed to work through them."

"This is so big, though."

"Candy's got a big heart."

Schiltz peered at Jack through the low light, the beery haze. "Have you forgiven Sharon?"

"Yes," Jack said, "I have." And that was the moment he realized that he was telling the truth, the moment he understood why her unreasoning outburst had cut him so deeply.

Jack cocked his head. "So who are you now, Egon? You see, I can forgive what you've done, I can look past the part you play, the lies you've maintained, and still love the man beneath, despite your betrayal of Candy and Molly-and of me, for that matter. You're my friend, Egon. That's what's important in life. Friends fuck up, occasionally they do the wrong thing, they're forgiven. The religious thing-well, in my view, it's not relevant here. It's what you do now as a man, Egon, as a human being, that will determine whether you live the rest of your life as a lie, or whether you begin to change. Whether or not that includes telling Candy is entirely up to you."

The Everly Brothers were singing "All I Have to Do Is Dream." The two listless women on the dance floor seemed to have fallen asleep in each other's arms.

"This is a chance to get to know yourself, Egon, the real you that's been hidden away for years beneath the Bible. I've seen bits of him out in the woods with our daughters, fishing, looking up at the stars, telling ghost stories."

Schiltz downed the last of his bourbon, stared down at the table with its empty glasses, damp rings, crumpled napkins. "I don't believe I fully understood you, until tonight."

He turned away, but not before Jack caught the glimmer of a tear at the corner of his eye.

"I don't…" Schiltz tried to clear the emotion out of his throat. "I don't know whether I have the strength to get to know myself, Jack."

"Well, I don't know either, Egon." Jack threw some money on the table. "But I'd lay odds that you're going to try."

THIRTY

THE SPANISH Steps, running on Twenty-second Street, between Decatur Place and S Street NW, was part of the luxe, lushly treed Dupont Circle area of Washington. Its formal name was the rather dull Decatur Terrace Steps, but no one, especially the residents of the Circle, called it that. They preferred the infinitely more romantic name that conjured up the real Spanish Steps in Rome. By any name, however, it was a delightful stone-and-concrete staircase guarded on either side by ornamental lampposts and crowned at its summit by a leonine fountain. By day, children could be seen running and squealing around the mouth of the great beast from whose mouth water spewed in a constant stream. At night, it gathered to itself a certain Old World charm that made it a favorite assignation spot of young lovers and adulterers alike.

Calla stood waiting for Ronnie Kray at the top of the steps. She had arrived a few minutes before midnight so that she could drink in the nighttime glow that illuminated the steps in a sepia tint. One of the lamppost lights on the right was out, and the resulting pool of shadows spilled across the stairs in a most pleasing manner. Couples strolled arm in arm, perhaps kissed chastely, then ran across the street laughing or stood on the corner, waiting for their radio-dispatched taxis to arrive.

Though she worked long and hard for the First American Secular Revivalists, and was as rational as the members who sat on either side of her, she was, at heart, a true romantic. Perhaps this was why she was drawn to Ronnie. Though she knew he was in his mid-fifties, he looked a decade younger. Perhaps that was because he was possessed of a romantic streak with which she could identify. Besides, he treated her like a lady, not like a kid, the way many at FASR did, especially Chris and Peter. She hated that they never took her suggestions seriously. Ronnie did. Ronnie got her, and she loved him for that.

She couldn't help furtively watching a young couple sitting on the steps, perhaps halfway down, necking. Calla imagined herself in the girl's place, her lover's hands on her warm flesh, and envied her. She'd come to Washington three years ago from Grand Rapids in search of a husband with a good job and solid family values. But finding that kind of man proved more difficult than she had imagined. She'd dated men who were either windbags or hopeless narcissists. And she'd deflected a number of married men who wanted to bed her, sometimes desperately. Switching to plan B, she'd thrown herself body and soul into FASR, a cause she believed in-fine for her sense of justice, bad for her love life.

As if from an invisible vibration, her head swung around and she saw him coming, stepping off the street onto the rectangular plaza at the top of the stairs where she waited for him.

"Hello, Ronnie," she said softly as he bent, his lips brushing her cheek.

"You came."

"Of course I came!" She looked deep into his dark eyes. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You could have changed your mind," Kray said. "People do, at the last minute."

"Well, I don't," Calla said firmly. He had taught her to stand up for what she believed, even with Chris and Peter. Terrifying and exhilarating all at once, like being on a roller coaster.

She shivered in the gusts of wind swirling around the fountain. The lovers on the steps had left, no doubt for a warm bed somewhere. The steps were clearing of people.

He put his arm around her. "Are you cold?"

"A little."

"Then let's get some hot coffee into you. Would you like that?"

Calla nodded, rested her head on his chest. She liked the bulk of him, the heft. She often thought of him as a sheltering cove.

He began to lead her down the steps.

She tugged against him gently, almost playfully. "Don't you want to go to Cafe Luna?"

"This is a special night." He continued to steer her down. "I've got a special place in mind."

They entered that area of the Spanish Steps where, because of the burned-out bulb, shadows billowed out across the stone and concrete like ink from an overturned bottle.

"Where are you taking me?" Calla asked. "Have we been there before?"

"It's a surprise," was all he said to her. "I promise you'll like it."

Huge trees rose far above their heads, the skeletal branches scratching the sky, as if trying to dig the diamond-hard stars out of a setting made milky by the District's million lights. In among this winter bower Calla shivered again, and Kray held her tighter, one arm around her waist.

All of a sudden, he lurched against her, as if his left ankle had turned over on a stone. She stumbled against the trunk of one of the trees and, as she did so, Kray stabbed her once in the back. So precise was the thrust, so practiced the hand, so unwavering the intent, the wickedly sharpened paletta did the rest.

Kray held her lifeless body and glanced around. Had anyone been looking, they'd have seen a man holding his drunk or ill wife, but as luck would have it, no one was about. Kray slowly laid Calla's body at the bole of the tree. With quick, practiced movements, he snapped on surgeon's gloves, pulled out the cell phone he'd taken from one of Alli's Secret Service guards, put it into her hand, pressed her fingers around it, then threw it into a nearby evergreen bush. Then he picked up the paletta. It was such a superb implement; it had penetrated through cloth, skin, and viscera with such ease, there was hardly any blood on it. He pocketed the weapon and, his mission accomplished, vanished into the shadowy forest of swaying trees.

THIRTY — ONE

IT'S A universal law of teenhood that the bully always returns for more. Maybe he's drawn to what he perceives as weakness, because other people's weakness makes him stronger. Maybe he's a sadist and can't help himself. Or maybe he just can't leave well enough alone. In any event, Andre returns to Jack's life, stronger, meaner, more determined than ever.

It's as if he's been biding his time, accumulating power, calculating his return like a general who's been forced to make a strategic retreat from the field of battle. The source of his newfound power isn't only his patron, Cyril Tolkan, but a supplier he's found on his own-a man named Ian Brady.

"One thing fo' sho," Gus says with a fair amount of scorn, "Ian Brady ain't no black man. Shit, Ian Brady ain't no American name, no way, no how. But, shee-it, he a ghost, that man, 'cause none a my snitches know shit 'bout him. I mean, who the fuck is he? Where he come from? Who's his contacts? He got so much fuckin' juice, he could light up alla D.C."

This tirade occurs one evening when Jack and Gus are at home, listening to James Brown. Jack has made a couple of purchases at the local record store and is eager to both hear them and share them with Gus. In the wake of Gus's rant, he wonders whether he should keep the LPs under wraps, but having brought up the subject during dinner, he has no choice.

"Huh! I mighta known!" Gus says, holding the cardboard sleeves in his massive hand. "Elvis Presley an' the Rolling Stones. White boys, jus' like you. And some of 'em look like they ain't eaten in weeks!"

"Just listen, will you? You're such a hard-ass!"

"Well, I heard Elvis, an' he ain't half-bad. So play this here other, so's I can see whut yo' taste in music's like."

Jack carefully slides the James Brown disc back in its sleeve, then rolls out the black vinyl disc of Out of Our Heads, puts the needle down, and out blasts "Mercy, Mercy." After the last jangling bars of "One More Try" fade into the walls, Gus turns to Jack, says, "Play dat again, son."

Jack puts the needle back on the first cut, and Mick Jagger starts it up.

Gus shakes his head in wonder. "Shee-it, fo' skinny little white boys, they sho-nuff do shout."

JACK NOW goes regularly to the library on G Street NW. At first, he went because Reverend Taske urged him to, but lately he's realized that he likes going. Because of Taske's training, he's tamed his fright of reading new texts; it's become more of a challenge, a way out of the strange little world his dyslexia shoved him into.

He loves the dusty air, golden with motes of history. He loves opening books at random, finding himself engrossed, so that he goes back, starts at page one and doesn't stop until he's devoured the last word. Unlike movies and TV that show him everything, even if he doesn't like it, books transport him into the world of his own imagination. As long as he can create pictures from the words he reads-scenes filled with characters, conflict, good and evil-he can build a world that's in many ways closer to the one other people inhabit. And this makes him feel less like an outsider. He feels he is that much closer to rubbing shoulders with the passersby on the street. This is the atmosphere that draws him day after day into the dusty quietude, calm as a still lake. But in those depths something waits for him, as it does almost every teenager: the fear that recurs, the fear that needs to be faced.

Jack comes face-to-face with his one Monday afternoon. He's back in the stacks, pulling down massive treatises on his latest passion: criminal psychology. A head in the book precludes vigilance. But who would think to be vigilant in a District public library? That's how Andre thinks, anyway. He's been following Jack to G Street every day for a week, until he's familiar with the schedule. It says something about just how deep his feelings of vengeance run that he's been on surveillance for five straight days when he could be negotiating his next shipment of smack from Ian Brady.

But some things are more important than H, more important than greenbacks, because they cry out to be resolved. And, frankly, Andre can't rest easy until this particular matter is resolved to his satisfaction.

Jack doesn't hear him as Andre creeps up from behind. Andre, in crepe-soled shoes he's bought for the occasion, approaches slowly, relishing the end to the ache that's been inside him ever since Cyril Tolkan delivered his punishment.

At the very end, he makes his rush, silent, filled with the power of righteous rage. He grabs Jack by his collar, lifts him bodily into the air, slams him against the rear wall. Shelves tremble; books spill onto the floor. Andre, his eyes alight with bloodlust, jams a forearm across Jack's windpipe both to silence him and to subdue him as quickly as possible. Though he's filled with a desire for vengeance, Andre is nothing if not pragmatic. He doesn't want to get caught in here with a dead or dying body. He has no intention of going into whitey's slammer, either now or ever.

With a tiny snik! he flicks open his switchblade. His victim seems so stunned, his hands aren't even up, trying to pry his forearm away. Maybe he doesn't have enough oxygen to act. Either way, it doesn't matter to Andre, who jabs the point of the blade in toward Jack's diaphragm. He's aiming for the soft spot just below the sternum, to drive the long, slender blade upward into Jack's heart.

JACK'S HANDS, down by his sides, have not, however, been idle. His left hand has kept its grip on the thick hardcover book he's been reading, and now, as he hears the telltale snik! of the switchblade, he reflexively presses the tome to his chest. The point of the knife encounters cotton, pasteboard, and paper instead of flesh. Andre's eyes widen in surprise, then squeeze shut as Jack's knee plows hard into his testicles.

As Andre begins to double over, Jack's windpipe is freed. He sucks in a great lungful of air, brings the book up, jams its edge into Andre's neck. To maintain the maximum force, he's obliged to keep both his hands on the spine of the book and so lacks the means to force Andre to drop the switchblade. This weapon now swings back and forth like a pendulum with a razor's edge, grazing first Jack's ear, then his shoulder. With each wild pass, Jack feels searing pain, and hot blood begins running down him. The next arc could find his carotid artery.

Gritting his teeth, he jams the book harder into Andre's throat, hears a crackle like a sheet of paper being crumpled prior to being thrown away. Then Andre's mouth opens wide, emits a sound like a grandfather clock about to break down.

Jack, staring into Andre's bloodshot eyes, begins to cry. Part of him knows what's happening, what the outcome will be, but that part must stand aside while the organism is in danger. Andre, in a last, desperate attempt to kill, brings the edge of the switchblade up to the level of Jack's ear. He points it inward, aiming for the canal opening. Jack, terrified, shifts his weight. The corner of the book penetrates into the hole made by the fracture of Andre's cricoid cartilage. All air is cut off.

Andre's knife hand moves. The point of the switchblade is almost at the canal opening. Jack leans in with all his weight; more of the book pushes inside Andre. Andre's knife hand begins to tremble; the momentum falters. Tears are streaming down Jack's cheeks. They fall onto Andre, into his wound. Andre's eyes stare at him. They are unreadable.

There is now a contest of wills. Andre can no longer breathe, but he holds the knife. All he has to do is summon the strength to jam it point-first into Jack's ear. There is a moment of stasis, when the power, the wills of both boys are held in balance. Nothing moves. The small sounds of the library, the occasional whisper, the soft pad of footfalls, the tiny, very particular sound of a book being slipped out from between its neighbors, all seem exaggerated, like the sounds of insects deep in the forest. All the trappings of civilization have become irrelevant, useless. All that remains are the tiny symphony of sounds and the beating of your own heart.

Nature abhors stasis; like fame, it's fleeting, though its seconds may seem like minutes. Jack feels the point of the knife enter his ear canal, and he twists the corner of the book. Andre's eyes roll up; his lips are drawn back in a rictus. He has nothing left, only a helpless rage that ushers him rudely from life to death.

Jack, panting like a sick dog, lies against Andre's crumpled form. He feels as if a light has gone out in the depths of his soul, as if he has lost a part of himself. He is in shock, stunned at what has occurred. There are no words, no thoughts in his head adequate to what he's feeling. Soon enough, he begins to shake with a profound chill. The strong copper taste of blood is on his tongue, but whether it's his blood or Andre's or both is impossible to say.

In a dim dead-end of the library where no one comes, he lies in a daze, in a kind of trancelike state, remembering an Indian parable from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna he came across weeks ago. It happened that a tigress, large with an unborn cub, attacked a herd of goats. As it sprang forward to grip in its teeth a terrified goat, the goatherd shot it. The tigress fell, and in that moment before she expired, she gave birth to her cub. The cub grew up with the goats, eating grass and, mimicking its adopted brothers and sisters, bleating. Until the day a male tiger found the herd. It quite naturally attacked the youngster, who did not fight back, but only bleated. The male tiger gripped the adolescent by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to the river.

"Look at our reflections," the male tiger said. "You and I are as brothers. Why do you bleat like a goat? Why do you live with them instead of feasting on them?"

"I like grass," the adolescent replied.

"Because grass is all you know."

Whereupon the male tiger leapt upon a goat, tore out its throat. The adolescent was close enough to the feast to taste the goat's blood. Then he put his head down and bit into the flesh, which he discovered he liked much more than the taste of grass.

The male tiger lifted his head, watching the adolescent gorge himself on goat meat. With his great muzzle covered in blood, he said, "Now you and I are the same. Now you know your true Self. Follow me into the forest."

Jack, weeping still, gets to his feet. He dries his eyes and, finding his shirtfront bloodied, grabs his jacket off the back of a chair, puts it on. He finds that if he buttons the jacket up to his neck, the blood is hidden.

On the verge of leaving, he turns to regard Andre. What has happened has affirmed a notion embedded in his subconscious for a number of years: It isn't simply his dyslexia that's made him an Outsider. He won't bleat and run like a goat. He won't ever rub shoulders with the passersby on the street; he doesn't want to. Like the tiger, he stands apart. The jungle is his home, not the cultivated field.

THIRTY — TWO

ONCE EVERY two weeks or so, Secretary Dennis Paull scheduled a senior staff meeting at dawn, much to the grumbling of those closest to him. There was no obvious reason for doing this except to keep them on their toes, which is what pissed off his senior staff because it cut into their social lives. God forbid they should attend one of Paull's senior staff meetings with a yawn or, worse, hungover. The secretary would hang them out to dry in front of their colleagues.

The meetings were held at Fort McNair, which was a building that didn't look like a fort and was in the heart of downtown Washington. No one understood why the meetings were held at an army base and not at Homeland Security HQ, but no one had the intestinal fortitude to query Secretary Paull. Consequently, people thought he was simply eccentric and this behavior, along with numerous other peccadilloes, simply became part of the Beltway lore concerning him.

This was precisely what Dennis Paull had in mind. He never did or said anything without a specific reason, though that reason, like the moves of a chess player, was not always readily apparent. The reason Paull scheduled the meetings at the crack of dawn was because virtually no one was around. The reason he held them at Fort McNair was that it was a place within which even the president couldn't track him.

This particular morning, at precisely 0617, Secretary Paull called a ten-minute break, pushed his chair back, and strode from the conference room. He walked down a number of halls, went down a flight of stairs, up another just to reassure himself that he was absolutely alone. Then he ducked into the men's room at the rear of the third floor. No one stood by the row of sinks; no one was using the urinals. He went down the row of stalls, opening each door to ensure no one was in temporary residence.

Then he banged open the door to the last stall in the row and said, "Good morning, sir."

Edward Carson, the president-elect, who had been reading the Washington Post, stood up, folded the paper under one arm, and said, "No need to call me sir yet, Dennis."

"Never too early to get started, sir."

The two men emerged from the stall. "Imagine what the Drudge Report would say about this," Carson grunted. "We're all alone?"

"Like Adam before Eve."

Carson frowned. "What news of Alli? Lyn is beside herself."

Paull knew it wasn't presidential for Carson to add that he was also beside himself. Presidents never lost their cool, no matter how dire the straits. "I believe we're closer to finding her today than we were yesterday."

"Knock off the media-speak," Carson said testily. "This is my daughter we're talking about."

"Yessir." Paull rubbed his chin. "The ball is in your man's court. I've given McClure every ounce of freedom I possibly can without showing my hand to the POTUS."

Carson's frown deepened. "But is that going to be enough, Dennis?"

"I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure, sir. But you and McClure go back quite a ways, from what you tell me, and you've said he's the best man for the job."

"And I stand by that," the president-elect said stiffly.

"If it makes you feel any better," Paull went on, "my agent agrees with you."

"The only thing that's going to make me feel better is the safe return of my daughter."

There was a sudden noise outside, and both men went completely still. Paull held up a finger, crossed to the door, pulled it open quickly. One of the cleaning personnel was turning a corner. When he was out of sight, Paull ducked back into the men's room, shook his head in the negative.

"I had to deliver Yukin into the POTUS's hands," Paull said. "I had the evidence against Mikilin, and I gave it to the POTUS before he left for Moscow. I attended a celebration of sorts following the POTUS's return. He's got the Russian president in his back pocket now, so does he demand exports from RussOil, as I suggested? Does he forge a pact to create a joint strategic uranium reserve, as I also suggested? No, of course not. Instead, he's spent the ammunition I gave him obtaining Yukin's promise to back the POTUS when he makes his final national-policy address to the nation. In it, he's going to charge that the government has direct evidence that Beijing is funding E-Two, and that the First American Secular Revivalists are, in fact, a front for E-Two. And where d'you think that bogus evidence will come from? Moscow, of course. And no one will be able to say it's false." Paull crossed to the door once again, put his ear to it. Satisfied, he returned to where Carson waited for him. "The POTUS is going to declare war on the missionary secularists of any and every stripe."

"I want to help you, Dennis, but until Alli is returned to me safe and sound, my hands are tied. As long as there's a suspicion that either E-Two or the FASR is behind her abduction, I can't make a stand against the president."

"I understand your overriding concern here, sir, but we've had a complication."

Carson's blue eyes bored into the secretary's. "What kind of a complication?"

"The men I sent to keep McClure safe were compromised."

He'd caught the president-elect's full attention.

"Compromised in what way?"

"The POTUS's people gave them orders to terminate."

A deathly silence overtook them. "Jack's safe?"

"Yessir, he is."

"I don't want another incident like that," Carson said. "Am I being clear?"

Paull stiffened. He knew a rebuke when he heard one, and this one was well deserved. "Absolutely, sir." Somewhere along the line, his careful security net had been breached. He had to find out where with all possible haste.

Carson stepped away, regarded his pale, lined face in the mirror, then turned around. "Dennis, if the POTUS got on to your men, then he knows. Jack's not the only one in terrible danger. We are, too."

"Yessir." Paull nodded. "That's the goddamned truth of it."

THIRTY — THREE

IT HAD been a long time since Jack woke up with a splitting headache. He clambered out of bed with the unusual care of a mountain climber with vertigo. Crawling into the shower, he turned on the cold water full-blast so that no one would hear him screaming.

Ten minutes later, when Nina called, he had crawled out of the muck of the sea and had grown a spinal cord. He figured by the time she showed up, he had a chance of being halfway human.

Still, he insisted on driving them over to the All Around Town bakery. The day was cool but sunny, which made a welcome change of pace. But according to AccuWeather, there was another front coming in that wasn't afraid of dumping three inches of rain or something worse on them.

He was in no mood to talk, but soon enough he noticed Nina repeatedly glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

Finally, she ventured an opinion on his physical state. "You look like crap."

"That's what a week without sleep will do to you." He eyed her speculatively. She was dressed in a gray flannel suit over a cream-colored cashmere sweater. "On the other hand, you look as fresh as a plate of sushi."

"And just as cool." Nina laughed. "I'll bet good money you were thinking that."

"Actually," Jack said, "I was thinking about what we'll do if Joachim Tolkan hasn't shown up from his sad trip to Miami Beach. Or, even worse, if the story he fed Oscar was a lie."

"Since when did you become a glass-half-empty guy?"

"Since last night," Jack said, more to himself than to her.

"What happened?"

"My ex happened," Jack said bitterly.

"I'm sorry, Jack." Nina put a hand briefly over his. "I once tried to get back with an old boyfriend. All that did was make me realize why we broke up in the first place."

Wanting to get off the subject of exes, Jack said, "I grew up around here. A lot of memories, good and bad. Mysteries, too."

"What kind of mysteries?"

"A double murder up at McMillan Reservoir, for one."

"It went unsolved?"

Jack nodded. "Not only that, I remember there was no info at all on who was killed."

"That is odd," Nina acknowledged.

Jack turned a corner. "Then there was Ian Brady."

"Who was he?"

"No one knew who he was or where he came from. But he had a huge amount of juice-too much, I'd say, for a local drug dealer. He was supplying heroin, God alone knows what else. Other suppliers were caught or killed, but not Brady. No one could lay a finger on him."

There was a sporty cabernet-colored Mercedes coupe parked in front of the All Around Town bakery, and Jack took this as a good sign. The bell rang as they walked in, and there was Oscar behind the counter.

"Boss just got here," he said as soon as he saw them enter. "Wait right there." He disappeared into the back. A moment later, he returned with a man whose only genetic connection with his father was his olive-gray complexion. He was tall and slim, dapper as his dad, though.

His expression was quizzical, curious, free from his father's dark guile. "Oscar said you wanted to see me."

"That's right."

Nina produced her Homeland Security ID. Jack made the introductions, gave their condolences for his loss.

Joachim Tolkan held out his hand.

Jack hadn't expected this. He didn't want to shake Joachim Tolkan's hand, the son of a murderer, but he saw no way out. The moment he took Joachim's hand, he felt an electric shock travel up his arm. It was as if he'd made contact with Cyril Tolkan from beyond the grave.

"Are you all right, Mr. McClure? You went white there for a moment."

"I'm fine," Jack lied.

"We just need a couple of moments of your time, Mr. Tolkan," Nina said in her best neutral voice.

"No problem." Joachim Tolkan lifted an arm. "Why don't we continue this discussion in my office? That way we can all sit down and relax." He turned to Oscar. "How about some coffee for our guests?"

As Nina passed Oscar, he handed her a chocolate-chip cookie, along with a wink.

Tolkan led them back through the oven room, hotter than Hades despite the exhaust fans and air-conditioning. To the right was a door through which he took them.

Jack found himself in a surprisingly large, pleasantly furnished office, complete with an upholstered sofa, coffee table, a pair of lamps. A full bathroom was to the right and beside it a short hallway that led to what appeared to be a bedroom.

"I stay here to all hours," Joachim Tolkan said, noticing Jack's scrutiny. He shrugged. "Anyway, no point in going back to the house these days. It's become the soon-to-be ex's territory."

As Tolkan settled himself behind his desk, Oscar arrived with a tray filled with mugs and a carafe of coffee. Oscar slid it onto the low table in front of the sofa and left, closing the door behind him.

"Help yourselves." When neither Jack nor Nina made a move to the tray, Tolkan said, "I'm curious. What does the Department of Homeland Security want with me?"

"Were you a member of FASR?" Jack said.

"So far as I know that's not a crime."

"You dropped out three and a half months ago," Nina said.

"Again, not a crime." Tolkan laced his fingers together. "Where, may I ask, is this going?"

Jack walked slowly around the room, studying everything. "E-Two."

Tolkan blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"You can," Jack said, turning to him, "but it won't do any good."

Tolkan spread his hands. "What's an E-Two?"

"Doesn't read the paper, apparently." Nina, perched on the arm of the sofa, took a tiny bite of her chocolate-chip cookie. "My, this is good."

"Listen." Jack advanced toward the desk. "We're not in the mood for lies."

Tolkan shook his head. "Lies about what?"

Was it Jack's imagination, or was Joachim Tolkan becoming more and more like his late father, Cyril? He found the thought intolerable. He was just about to lunge at Tolkan when, entirely without warning, Nina skimmed her cookie right at Tolkan's head. The edge struck him just over the left eye, the impromptu missile shattering on impact.

Tolkan's hand flew to his face. "What the hell-!"

Jack reached over, grabbed Tolkan by his lapels, dragged him up off his comfortable chair so that he was half-hanging over his desk. Cookie crumbs and bits of chocolate were strewn across his Hermes tie.

"You haven't been listening to us, Joachim." Jack's face was flushed; there was a murderous look in his eye. "We don't have time for your fun and games." Jack hurled him back into the chair. "Tell us about your involvement in E-Two."

Now it was Tolkan's face that was white. He looked visibly shaken. "I was sworn to secrecy."

"Your allegiance is admirable," Nina said with a chill Jack could feel, "but misplaced."

"Spill it, Joachim!" Jack thundered.

Tolkan expelled a little squeak. "All right, but there really isn't much to tell." With a trembling hand, he pushed his hair off his forehead. "I heard about E-Two through someone I worked with at FASR. I quit when he did because he said FASR was too slow and poky, too conservative to get anywhere. He said if I was really serious about change, there was another group we could join, one that would get things done. Sounded good to me, so I said okay. Then I come to find out that E-Two's methods are violent."

"That didn't attract you?" Jack said.

"What? No."

"But your father was a violent man."

Joachim regarded Jack with the proper amount of fear. "What does my father have to do with it?"

Jack said, "The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the poisoned tree."

Tolkan shook his head. "You've got it wrong."

Nina crossed her arms. "So enlighten us."

Tolkan nodded. "The truth is once I was old enough to understand how my father could afford all the luxuries I enjoyed as a kid, I stayed as far away from him as I could. It sickened me the way he'd take us all to church on Sunday, how he'd kneel, say his prayers to Jesus, quote from the Bible, and then go out and do… the things he did. I wanted no part of him, his contacts, his blood money. I worked my way through college, got an MBA from Georgetown."

Nina came down off the sofa arm. "So how come you wound up here?"

"I worked for Goldman Sachs for a year and hated every minute of it. When I quit, I decided I wanted to be my own boss. The bakery was still going, more or less. I saw an opportunity. I stepped in, invested in advertising, in a community-outreach program. Gradually I built up the business to the point where I needed to expand."

"And look at you now," Nina said.

Jack put his fists on the desk. "So you expect us to believe that you never joined E-Two."

"I didn't," Tolkan said, shying away. "I swear it."

"What happened?" Nina asked.

"I felt ashamed of myself. I went back to FASR, but they wouldn't have me. Chris said I could no longer be trusted."

Jack said, "This friend of yours-"

"He isn't a friend."

"Colleague, whatever." Jack pulled himself up. "Does he have a name?"

"Ron Kray."

Nina checked the printout Armitage had given them. "He's here," she said, and read off his home address.

"That's a phony. Kray told me. He's very private."

Jack wondered why the name seemed familiar to him. He racked his brain, but the answer remained frustratingly out of reach. "So where does Mr. Kray live?" he said.

"He never told me and I never asked," Tolkan answered. "But he said he works at Sibley Memorial Hospital."

"I've heard of it," Jack said. "It's a rehab place for the elderly. Physical and psychiatric."

Tolkan nodded. "Ron's a nurse there. A psychiatric nurse."

THE MODERN layer cake of Sibley Memorial occupied a wide swath of real estate on Sleepy Hollow Road outside of Falls Church. Nina suggested they call to see if Kray was on duty, but Jack disagreed.

"First off, I don't want to take any chance of him being tipped off we're coming. Secondly, even if he's not there, the HR department is bound to have a current photo of him."

As it turned out, Kray wasn't on duty. In fact, the head of the psychiatric department told them he hadn't worked there for over two years.

They were directed to the HR department, where they obtained Kray's last known address, which matched the one on the list Chris Armitage had given them. Kray's photo ID, however, had been destroyed.

KRAY LIVED on Tyler Avenue, not more than six minutes away. Nina was silent during most of the drive. At length, she turned to Jack.

"You must think I'm quite the neurotic."

Jack concentrated on his driving. This was somewhat of a new area for him, and he wanted to make sure he read every road sign.

Nina took his silence for assent. "Yeah, you do."

"What do you care what I think?"

"For one thing, we're working together. For another, I like you. Your mind doesn't work like anyone else's I've ever met."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

She offered a nod of assent. "In a very short time, I've come to trust what you call your hunches."

"Would you call them something else?"

She nodded. "I would, yes, if I had a word to describe them. Whatever they are, they're far more than hunches, though." She put her head back. "You know, if I spend any more time with you, I'll start to doubt everything I thought was true."

She put a hand over his. "We had a moment there under the old oaks where Emma escaped from school at night." Her forefinger curled, the nail scratched lightly, erotically along his palm. "Why don't we take it from there?"

He braked until he could decipher a street sign. Also, to clear the air between them.

"Listen, Nina, I'm flattered. But just so there's no misunderstanding, I'm not into on-the-job screwing."

"Too many complications?"

The image of Sharon was beside him, with her long tanned legs, hair swept across her face, that mysterious look in her eyes he loved because he never quite knew what it meant or foretold. "Among other things."

"What if we weren't partners? I could arrange-"

"It wouldn't matter."

"Well, that's candor for you." Nina removed her hand. "Your ex still under your skin?"

He swung onto Tyler, slowed to a crawl.

"Okay, forget it. Privacy's something I respect. There is, in any case, a kind of privilege in loneliness. It makes you feel alive, introduces you to yourself."

Jack felt annoyed. "I didn't mean that."

"You just didn't say it." She took out a clove cigarette, lit up. "I have a question. D'you have any idea who Emma met underneath the oaks?"

"My daughter's life was a closed book to me. It was as well hidden as a spy's dead drop."

"You never followed up on it?"

"With who?" A nerve she had nicked flared up. "My daughter's dead."

THIRTY — FOUR

JACK WENT up the flagstone path, knocked on the door. Immediately, a dog began to bark. He heard a scuffling inside, then the patter of feet. The door opened, revealing a middle-aged woman in a housecoat. A cigarette was dangling from her mouth.

"Yeah?" She looked Jack square in the eye without a trace of apprehension.

Jack cleared his throat. "I'm wondering if Ron Kray is home."

The dog continued barking inside the house. The woman squinted through the smoke trailing up from her cigarette. "Who?"

"Ron Kray, ma'am." Nina stepped up.

"Oh, him." The woman expelled a phlegmy cough. "He used to live here. Moved out about, oh, six months ago."

"Do you know where he went?"

"Nah." The dog's barking had become hysterical. The woman ducked her head back inside. "For God's sake, Mickey, shut the fuck up!" She turned back. "Sorry about that. People make him nervous. He's probably gonna leave a deposit on the kitchen linoleum." She grunted. "At least the carpet'll be spared."

"You wouldn't happen to still get any of Kray's mail," Jack said.

"Not a one." The woman took a mighty drag on her cigarette, let out a plume of smoke like Mount Saint Helens. "Sorry I can't be of more help."

"You did fine," Jack said. "Can you tell me the address of the local post office?"

"I'll do better than that." The woman pointed the way, giving him detailed directions.

Jack thanked her, and they picked their way back down the flagstone walk.

"The post office?" Nina said as they climbed back into the car.

Jack glanced at his watch. "We just have time to get there." He pulled out, drove down the street. "Tolkan said that Kray was a private man. He wouldn't have wanted anyone else getting his mail. I'm betting he filed a change-of-address form before he left."

They headed east on Tyler, while Nina finished her cigarette, turned right onto Graham Road, right again on Arlington Boulevard, then a left onto Chain Bridge Road. The post office occupied a one-story pale brick building. It looked like every other post office Jack had been to, outside and in.

He walked up to the counter, asked to see the postmistress. Ten minutes later, a hefty woman in her mid-fifties appeared, walking none too quickly. It seemed to Jack that all postal employees were constitutionally incapable of moving at anything but a sluggish pace. Then again, maybe they learned it at some secret government academy.

Jack and Nina showed their credentials, asked for a forwarding address for Ron Kray. The postmistress, who had a face like a boxing glove, told them to wait. She disappeared into the mysterious bowels of the building. Time passed, people walked in, got on line, waited, inched forward. Forms were filled out, packages were rubber-stamped, more forms were filled out, letters and more packages were rubber-stamped. People who failed to fill out the proper forms were sent to the corner stand to correct their mistakes. Jack was at the point of risking a federal offense by hurdling the counter to go after the postmistress, when she reappeared, inching snail-like toward them.

"No Ron Kray," she said in her laconic manner. She spoke like a character straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel.

Jack took a pad and a pen, laboriously wrote down Kray's last known address, the house they'd just come from. Tearing off the top sheet, he handed it to the postmistress, who looked as if her recent labors had tired her out. "How about a forwarding from this address?"

The postmistress peered down at the slip of paper as if it might possibly do her harm. "I don't think I can-"

"From six months ago, give or take a week."

The postmistress looked at him bleakly. "Gonna take some time, this."

Jack smiled. "We'll be waiting."

"I get off work in twelve minutes," she pointed out.

"Not today, you don't," Nina said.

The postmistress glared at her, as if to say, Et tu, Brute? Then, in a huff, she shuffled off.

More time passed. The line gradually dwindled down, the last customer finally dealt with. A collective sigh of relief could be felt as the postal workers totaled up, locked their drawers, and followed their leader into the rear of the building.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she was having a cup of tea back there," Jack said. "She looks the vindictive type."

"Jack, about Emma-I was just trying to help."

He looked away, said nothing.

She bit her lip. "You're a hard man."

She waited a moment. They were alone in the front of the post office, the entry doors having been locked.

She peered into his face. "Could we start over?"

Jack returned slowly from the black mood of last night. "Sure. Why not?"

She caught the tone of his voice. "You're not very trusting, are you?"

"Trust has nothing to do with it," he said, a wave of leftover anger washing over the wall of his normal reserve. "Life has taught me how not to love."

At that moment, shuffling footsteps forestalled further discussion. The postmistress had reappeared and was heading straight toward them. She was holding a handful of forms. Nina snatched them out of her hand just as she was saying, "There are six-well, I never!"

Nina was scrutinizing them, for which Jack was grateful. Considering the tense circumstances and the watchful eyes of the postmistress, he'd have had a difficult time focusing.

Nina went through the forms one by one, shook her head. "We're going to have to run all of these people down." Suddenly, her eyes lit up. "Wait a minute!" She flipped back to the fifth form. "Charles Whitman. Now that's odd. Charles Whitman was the name of the sniper who climbed the University of Texas tower in August of 1966 and in an hour and a half killed fourteen people and injured a whole lot more. Someone at the scene, I forget who, said, 'He was our initiation into a terrible time.'»

"I remember, that was a local shopowner. I saw him interviewed." Then Jack snapped his fingers. "That's why Ron Kray sounded familiar to me. Ronnie Kray and his twin brother, Reggie, were a pair of notorious psycho killers in the East End of London during the fifties and sixties."

"We've got him!" Nina said. "Our man's using both Kray and Whitman as aliases."

Jack took Kray/Whitman's change-of-address form from her. Concentrating hard, he began to read the new address. It was in Anacostia; that much he got right away. But the street and the number eluded him, swimming away on a sea of anxiety. Of course, the street name was simplicity itself, and part of his brain had recognized it at once. The problem was, it had shied away from recognition.

"He's at T Street SE," Nina said.

Then she read off the number, and Jack's hand began to shake. Their target, Ron Kray, Charles Whitman, whatever his real name was, the man who might very well have abducted Alli Carson, was living in the Marmoset's house.

THIRTY — FIVE

FEW PEOPLE know where Gus and Jack live; even fewer come to visit. So when Detective Stanz shows up one evening at the Maryland end of Westmoreland Avenue, Jack has cause for a certain degree of alarm. For a time, Stanz and Gus stand out on the porch, jawing away. Stanz lights a Camel, and smoke comes out his nostrils. He looks like a bull in one of those Warner Bros. cartoons, except there's nothing funny about him. He seems to carry death around with him under his left armpit, where his service revolver is holstered.

Jack, lurking inside, hears the words "McMillan Reservoir," so he's reasonably certain that after the Marmoset's murder, whoever Gus put on the double murders hasn't come up with enough to satisfy Stanz. But apparently he's come up with something, because Jack hears Stanz say, "I say let's go now. There're questions I want to ask him."

Gus nods. He walks into the house, uses the phone out of Jack's hearing. He returns to tell Jack that he's going off with Stanz, that he'll be back in a couple of hours. As he watches the two men step off the porch, Jack hurries to the desk where Gus keeps an extra set of car keys. Slipping out of the house, he just has time enough to start the white Lincoln Continental, put it in gear as he's seen Gus do, roll out after Stanz's dark-colored Chevy. Jack deliberately keeps the headlights off until there's enough traffic so that neither man will pick up the Continental. He's only ever driven around the near-deserted streets of the house, with Gus beside him talking softly, correcting his errors or overcompensations. The sweat rolls into his eyes, pours from his armpits. His mouth is dry. If a cop stopped him right this moment, he wouldn't be able to say a word.

With a desperate effort, he finds his equilibrium. Thankfully, he only has to concentrate on the Chevy and the colors of the traffic lights. If he needed to read street signs, he'd be completely lost. He pushes a button on the dashboard, and James Brown starts shouting "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." Singing along, he thinks fleetingly of how far he's come since "California Dreamin' " sent ugly shivers up his spine.

He notices that the Chevy is heading more or less toward the reservoir area and wonders who it is that Gus recruited to take the Marmoset's place. It's an unenviable position, one that almost certainly requires a higher degree of compensation than Gus is used to paying. But then, that expense will no doubt be borne by Stanz and the Metro Police.

They are traveling north on Georgia Avenue NW, overshooting the reservoir. When Stanz's Chevy turns right on Rock Creek Church Road, Jack switches off his lights, feeling he knows where the rendezvous with Gus's snitch is going to take place. His hunch is confirmed when he follows the Chevy onto Marshall, and then Pershing Drive. They are now skirting the west side of the flat black expanse of the U.S. Soldiers' & Airmen's Golf Course. Bare trees loom up in groups that no doubt vexed the duffers making their slow rounds during daylight hours. Now, however, the trees have the course to themselves.

After flicking its headlights twice, the Chevy rolls to a stop on a section of road hemmed in on both sides by trees. Immediately, Jack sees Stanz and Gus emerge from the Chevy. Stanz has kept the headlights on, and the two men follow the twin beams that cut through eerie shadows, straight down the road. Pale moths flutter, spending themselves in the glare.

Cautiously, Jack emerges from the Continental, making sure the door swings shut noiselessly but doesn't latch. Keeping to the side of the road, he creeps from tree to tree, stepping from shadow to shadow to make sure he won't be seen.

He's close enough now to see that Stanz and Gus have been joined by a male figure. He stands just outside the beams of light, and Jack moves forward to try to get a look at his face. He still isn't sure why he felt compelled to follow Gus. He knows he's worried. Someone murdered the Marmoset because he got too close to whoever killed those two men at the McMillan Reservoir. Jack read the news story, was mildly surprised to find that there was no information about who the victims were. The article said that the identities were being withheld pending notification of the respective next of kin. But in the increasingly smaller follow-ups, no mention was ever made of the victims' names.

As he inches closer, Jack can see that the three men are in animated discussion. Stanz's hands are hewing the air like axes. His mouth is going a mile a minute.

"— you mean, you can't get a name? I need a goddamned name!"

"I haven't got one," Gus's snitch replies.

"Then I'll damn well find someone who-"

"I guarantee you'll never get the name of the murderer," the snitch says, "either from me or anyone else."

Jack starts as he sees Stanz pull his service revolver. If it isn't for Gus's intervention, Jack feels certain Stanz would have shot the snitch. As it is, Stanz leaps at him, gets in a roundhouse right before Gus grabs him around the waist, holds him bodily in check.

"Get outta here," Gus growls. "Go on now!"

"That's right," Stanz howls in fury, "run away with your tail between your legs, you good-for-nothing nigger!"

Gus hurls Stanz to the ground, stands over him with the detective's gun in his huge hand. "I'll take alotta shit from you, but not this." He empties Stanz's service revolver, throws away the bullets. Then he drops the gun. "Don't come round my place no more, heah?"

As he stalks away, Stanz yells, "Don't expect to be paid for this!" And then as Gus squeezes behind the wheel of the Chevy and drives off, "Hey, are you leaving me here? What the fuck!"

GUS IS waiting for Jack in the side yard under the shadows of the big oak. Jack, rolling in with the lights off, doesn't see him until he steps out. Jack brakes and Gus looms up to the driver's window, which Jack rolls down.

"Since you got yo'self used t'drivin' the boat, you can follow me t' the precinct so I can drop off this piece-o'-shit Chevy."

Gus lets Jack drive on the way home, as well. He says, "Whut you 'spect t'do, out there onna golf course?"

His voice isn't pissed off; it isn't even querulous. If Jack didn't know better, he'd think there was a note of tenderness.

"I was worried."

"Huh, 'bout me?" Gus pulls out his Magnum.357.

Jack says nothing, concentrates on making it home without getting lost. He supposes this to be a lesson, what's behind Gus's decision to let him stay behind the wheel.

"You bring a weapon, kid?"

Jack is startled out of his thoughts. "Uh, no."

"Why the hell not?" Gus puts away the enormous gun. "Whut you think you could do out there if things got ugly?"

"They almost did," Jack says, happy now to speak up.

"Huh, don' take no chances like that again, heah?"

Jack nods.

"They's a key behin' the kitchen door."

"I've seen it."

"Bottom right-hand drawer of my desk. They's a snub-nosed.38. Jus' right for a young feller like you. It's loaded, but there's a coupla boxes of ammo inna back."

"I don't like guns," Jack says.

"Huh, who the fuck does?" Gus shifts in his seat. "But sometimes there jes' ain't no substitute."

JACK WANTS to stay awake. In fact, with all the excitement, he's certain he will. But Gus turns on the stereo. Music, familiar, earthy, shuffling, comes from his room, wraps Jack in a cocoon of melancholy history, and soon he's in a deep sleep.

He opens his eyes to see a bird on the branch of the oak outside his window. It's perched near the empty nest. Its head swivels as it looks in, peers around. It's morning. A thin, milky light stretches across the bare plank floor. Jack throws the covers off, stumbles to the bathroom to empty his bladder and splash cold water on his face.

He wonders what Gus is going to make for breakfast this morning. He hopes it's wild-blueberry pancakes. Since he doesn't smell anything cooking from downstairs, he knows there's time enough to put in his request with the chef.

Padding out into the hallway in just his underwear, he yawns hugely, scratches his stomach. He knocks on the partly open door of Gus's bedroom, calls his name, and walks in. The curtains are drawn and it's dim, still night here.

Gus is lying on the bed, the sheets and blanket rucked beneath his huge frame. He's facedown, his arms splayed wide. Jack assumes he's in a drunken stupor, calls his name more loudly. Getting no response, he pulls the curtains. Morning steps into the room, floods the scene.

Jack sees the bedclothes are black and shiny. He sees Gus's mouth half-open, as if he's about to yell at someone. He's staring right at Jack.

"Gus?"

Then Jack sees a knife with an odd-looking hilt jammed into Gus's back.

MUCH LATER, after the police have come and gone, after he's given his statement, after Reverend Taske has come, prepared food for Jack, after the house empties of light and life, Jack goes to the stereo, puts on Out of Our Heads. As Mick Jagger begins his aural strut, Jack stands fixed, staring at nothing at all. He knows he'll spend the night down here-maybe many nights to come. He can't bring himself to go upstairs, either to his room or to Gus's. But he wonders if that bird is still in the oak. He wonders what he was looking for.

Nearly a month after that, Detective Stanz comes to see him at the Hi-Line, the running of which Jack has taken over. Stanz walks slowly along the length of the glass cases, as if he's in the market to buy one of the odds and ends displayed there. But Jack knows why he's here. The only mystery is what took him so long to show up.

At last, he gets to where Jack is standing behind the register. He clears his throat. "You have some, uh, documents that Gus was keeping for me. I'd, uh, I'd like to have them back."

Jack considers for a moment. "I know what documents you mean. They belonged to Gus; now they belong to me."

Stanz's face looks like a fist. "Why, you little-!"

Jack reaches under the counter, pulls out a plain manila envelope. "I have one of them here."

He opens it, so Stanz can see the photocopies of the paperwork Stanz signed when he got his safe-deposit box at the Riggs National Bank.

Stanz snorts. "So what? Most everybody has a safety deposit box."

Jack slides a photocopy of another document from under the paperwork. "Not when two million dollars of Luis Arroyo Ochoa's money goes from the box to this offshore account in the Caymans."

Stanz goes white. He grips the display case so as not to lose his balance. "But this is impossible! Those accounts are sealed."

Jack nods. "So I understand, but that tax lawyer you went to who set up the account? He works for Gus."

Stanz wipes his sweating face. He moves to gather in the damning evidence against him, but Jack is quicker. He spirits the folder away.

"There's a price for everything," he says.

Shooting him a bleak stare, Stanz says, "What's yours?"

"I want to know who murdered Gus."

Stanz breathes a sigh of relief, and Jack knows why. He was terrified that Jack would demand half of the two million he stole. But Jack wants no part of Ochoa's blood money, and he's quite certain neither would Reverend Taske. Besides, Gus provided generously for Renaissance Mission Church in his will, just as he provided for Jack.

The detective licks his lips. "What about the other one?"

"The receipt for the gun you used to kill Manny Echebarra is safe with me, Detective Stanz. No one needs to see it."

Stanz ponders the unexpected situation he finds himself in. At length, he nods. "As it happens, I can help."

He holds out his hand. Jack gives him the folder and he stashes it away.

"The knife we took out of Gus's back is so unusual, it took the ME two weeks to track it down," Stanz says. "It's called a paletta. It's used in bakeries. Gus introduce you to any bakery-store owners? Yeah, I thought so. His calling card, right?" His glittery eyes regard Jack without even the smallest measure of sympathy. This is a business transaction, pure and simple. "The thing of it is, there's no prints, so we can't prove anything. The Metro Police's hands're tied, know what I mean?"

Jack, his mind already fixed on Cyril Tolkan, knows precisely what he means.

THIRTY — SIX

UNLIKE OTHER places in his past Jack had visited recently, the Marmoset's house looked just as he remembered it, with its deep-blue exterior and white shutters. It must have been repainted recently, he thought.

With the real possibility of a kidnap victim inside, along with her abductor, Jack wasn't prepared to take any chances of some overeager idiot tipping Kray/Whitman off. He got no argument from Nina. What he didn't tell her was that, incredible as it seemed, he was now quite certain that Kray/Whitman was the same person who had killed the two nameless men at McMillan Reservoir, the Marmoset, and Gus twenty-five years ago. He was also the man who had abducted Alli Carter, and Jack had little doubt that he would slip his paletta into Alli Carter's back if he was given the slightest hint his lair had been compromised. What he couldn't work out as yet was the overarching pattern into which all these terrible offenses fit, because there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that all the crimes were somehow connected. He was drawing close, however, because he could sense its color in his mind: a cold, neon blue, as beautiful as the developing pattern was ugly.

There was something else the developing pattern told him: In gunning down Cyril Tolkan for Gus's murder, he'd gone after the wrong man. Now, as his mind rolled all the emerging facts around, he had to wonder whether his stalking Tolkan was a case of deliberate misdirection. After all, it was the unique murder weapon that both Stanz and Jack had found most incriminating. The paletta was used in bakeries; Cyril Tolkan owned one: the All Around Town bakery. But though Jack had killed Tolkan twenty-five years ago, the strange filed-down paletta was being used again as a murder weapon. Jack didn't believe the paletta turning up again was a coincidence, nor did he think it was a copycat killer, simply because twenty-five years ago the murder weapon had never been revealed to the public. That meant Gus's murderer had been alive all this time. But why surface now, and why abduct Alli Carson?

Jack sat stunned, trying to regain his equilibrium as past and present rushed headlong at each other.

At last, he roused himself. "I know this place," he said as they sat in the car where they'd parked down the block. "I'll take the back, you take the front."

They synchronized their watches. It was dusk, the light grimly fading from the sky as if whisked away by a sooty broom. The air was cold but still. Dampness lay on the ground like trash.

"Give me ninety seconds from the time we split up to get into position," he continued, "okay?"

Nina nodded and they both got out of the car. Together, they glanced at their watches as they parted company on the pavement. Jack counted to himself as he made his way down the side of the house, past a couple of garbage cans on his right, a chain-link fence on his left. Jack thought of Zilla, the huge German shepherd Gus treated so well.

He arrived at the back door with sixteen seconds to spare. On his way, he'd passed three windows. Two were heavily curtained, making it impossible to see in. The third looked past lacy curtains to a kitchen, yellow as butter. It was deserted.

Inserting a pair of hooked picks into the lock, he manipulated them so that they simulated the turn of the proper key. The door popped open at almost the same time Nina was knocking on the front door. Glock drawn, Jack went from room to room, listened for any human sounds in between Nina's insistent knocking. It was dim, gloomy, full of bad memories that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards. In the hallway, he paused at the line of photos. His hair stood on end-they were all of Alli Carson. They had the telltale flatness associated with a long telephoto lens. Then his breath caught in his throat, for there in the middle was a photo of Alli and Emma walking together on the Langley Fields campus. As he stared at the two girls, Emma's image seemed to flicker, grow wavy, and move toward him. He could swear she knew he was here; he thought the smile on her face was for him.

As if from the wrong end of an amplifier, he heard her call to him. He wanted to answer her, but the fear of Kray/Whitman being in the house kept him silent.

Nina's renewed banging on the front door caused him to jump, but that was hardly the source of his fright. He passed into the foyer, reached out and opened the door to let her in. A quick negative shake of his head let her know he hadn't found anyone, but he led her silently to the photos in the hallway.

With his left hand, he indicated that she should check the second floor. He went room by room: the cobwebby basement, smelling of raw concrete and damp, the living room with its astounding volcanoes of books, magazines, papers of all kinds. The bathroom was clear, as was the kitchen. It was curious, though. The living room and foyer were just as he remembered them, cluttered and musty, but the kitchen and bathroom were neat and spotless, shining like a scientist's laboratory. It was as if two completely different people inhabited the same place: the ghost of the Marmoset and Kray/Whitman.

To the left, he found a closed door. Trying the knob, he ascertained that it was locked. His picks were of no help here. The lock was of a kind he hadn't encountered before. He stood back, aimed, then shielded his eyes as he fired the Glock at it. The resulting percussion brought Nina at a dead run.

He kicked in the door, found a room with only a huge painted wood chair. At one time, probably when the Marmoset had lived here, the room had had a window. Since then it had been bricked up and painted over. It reeked sourly of sweat, fear, and human excrement.

The two of them returned to the hallway, went down it until they found themselves back in the cheerful kitchen.

"Check everything," Jack said.

They opened closets, drawers, cabinets. All the utensils, bottles, cans, mops, brooms, dustpans were arranged in order of utility and size. The oven was empty inside. Nina pulled open the door to the refrigerator.

"Look here."

She knelt in front of the open refrigerator. All the shelves had been removed. She pointed to the bottom, where something translucent was wedged between sections.

"I think that's a piece of skin."

Jack nodded, his heart thudding in his throat. "Let's bag it, get it over to Dr. Schiltz. I have a feeling it belongs to our Jane Doe who had her hand amputated."

Nina donned a pair of latex gloves. "Let's pray it doesn't belong to Alli Carson."

As she produced a plastic bag and tweezers, Jack moved to the pantry door. It was closed but not latched. Gingerly, he pulled it open.

He expelled a long sigh of relief. The First Daughter was wedged into a corner, her back against the far wall where it met a set of cabinets. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins. She was rocking gently back and forth, as if to comfort herself.

Jack squatted down to Alli's level.

"Alli?" He had to call her name three or four times before her head swung around, her eyes focused on him. By this time, Jack could hear Nina speaking to HQ. She was asking for an ambulance, the Carson family doctor, who was standing by at Langley Fields, and an armed escort. She had initially asked for Hugh Garner, but for some reason Jack couldn't make out, wasn't able to speak with him.

"No sirens," Jack said softly, and Nina relayed the message.

Jack edged closer, and Alli shrank back. "Alli, it's Jack, Jack Mc-Clure. Emma's father. Do you remember me?"

Alli regarded him out of depthless eyes. She hadn't stopped rocking, and Jack couldn't help thinking of the room with the monstrous chair, the straps, the smell.

"Don't be afraid, Alli. Nina and I were sent by your father and mother. We're here to take you home."

Something in what he said put the spark of life into her eyes. "Jack?"

"Yes, Alli. Jack McClure."

Alli suddenly stopped rocking. "Is it really you?"

Jack nodded. He held out one hand until Alli reached out, tentatively took it. He was prepared for her to draw back, but instead she launched herself into his arms, sobbing and shaking, holding on to him with a desperation that plucked at his heart.

He rose with her in his arms. She was trembling all over. Nina moved in beside him. She was opening the drawers in the cabinet, one by one. All were empty, save the top one, which held an assortment of the usual handiwork tools: hammer, level, pliers, wire-cutter, a variety of screwdrivers and wrenches.

Alli began to whimper again, and Jack put one hand at the back of her head in an attempt to calm her. With the other, he fumbled out his cell phone, pressed a button. A moment later, president-elect Edward Carson came on the line.

"Sir, I have your daughter. Alli is safe and sound."

There was a brief rustle at the other end of the line that could have been anything, even Carson brushing away some tears. "Thank God." His voice was clotted with emotion. Then Jack heard him relay the news to his wife, heard her shout of relief and joy.

"Jack," Carson said, "Lyn and I don't know how to thank you. Can we speak with her?"

"I wouldn't advise it, sir. We need to extract her fully and assess her health."

"When can we see her?"

"The ambulance is on its way," Jack said. "You can meet us at Bethesda."

"We're on our way," the president-elect said. "Jack, you made good on your promise. Neither Lyn nor I will forget it."

At the same moment Jack put away his cell, Nina opened the cupboard over the small sink. Nina recoiled when she saw the horned viper slither down onto the countertop. The evil-looking wedge-shaped head with its demon's horns quested upward. The viper was hungry, and she was annoyed. Her tongue flicked out, vibrating, scenting living creatures.

Jack dug the pliers out of the drawer. The head moved forward, far faster than he could follow, but midway toward him a shadow fell across it, slowing it. Jack felt a breath of cool air brush the nape of his neck. With a well-aimed swipe of the pliers, he stunned the snake. Gripping the viper's head between the ends of the pliers, he squeezed as hard as he could. Though its brain was pulped, the viper's body continued to thrash, slamming itself this way and that in a random fury for a long time.

Nina struggled to regain her equilibrium. "Jack, are you all right?"

Unable to find his voice, he nodded.

"It was coming straight at you; I was sure it would bite you."

"It would have," Jack said, a little dazed himself, "but something slowed it down."

"That's impossible."

"Nevertheless, something did. A shadow came between the snake and me."

Nina looked around. "What shadow, Jack?" She passed her hand through the space Jack indicated. "There's no shadow here, Jack. None at all."

Alli twisted in his arms, taking her face out of his shoulder. "What happened?" she whispered.

Jack kicked the snake's body away. "Nothing, Alli. Everything's fine."

"No, it isn't, something happened," she insisted.

"I'm taking you out of here, Alli," he whispered as he took her back out through the kitchen and down the hall. "Your folks are coming to meet us."

The Marmoset's house was crawling with the heavily armed detail Nina requested. Along with them came two EMS attendants with a rolling stretcher, a nurse, and the Carson family doctor. But Alli refused to be parted from Jack, so he and Alli, with Nina at their side, strode out of the house with the escort.

Alli put her lips to his ear. "I felt something, Jack, like someone standing beside us."

"You must have blacked out for a minute," Jack said.

"No, I felt someone breathe-one cool breath on my cheek."

Jack felt his heart lurch. Could it be that Alli had felt the shadow, just as he had? His mind lit up with possibilities.

He climbed into the ambulance with her clinging to him. Even when he managed to get her onto the stretcher so that the doctor could examine her, she wouldn't let him go entirely. She was clearly terrified he'd leave her alone with her living nightmare.

He gripped her hand, talking of the good times when she and Emma were best friends, and gradually she relaxed enough for the doctor to take her vitals and administer a light sedative.

"Jack…" Alli's lids were heavy, but the abject horror was sliding off her face like a mask. "Jack…"

"I'm here, honey," he said with tears in his eyes. "I won't leave you."

His voice was hoarse, his breathing constricted. He was all too aware that this is what he should have said to Emma a long time ago.