From Potter`s Field

9

I left New York that afternoon on a US Air shuttle and got into Washington National at three. Lucy could not meet me at the airport because she had not driven since her accident, and there was no appropriate reason for me to find Wesley waiting at my gate.

Outside the airport I suddenly felt sorry for myself as I struggled alone with briefcase and bag. I was tired and my clothes felt dirty. I was hopelessly overwhelmed and ashamed to admit it. I couldn't even seem to get a taxi.

Eventually, I arrived at Quantico in a dented cab painted robin's-egg blue with glass tinted purple. My window in back would not roll down, and it was impossible for my Vietnamese driver to communicate who I was to the guard at the FBI Academy entrance.

'Lady doctor,' the driver said again, and I could tell he was unnerved by the security, the tire shredders, the many antennae on tops of buildings. 'She okay.'

'No,' I said to the back of his head. 'My name is Kay. Kay Scarpetta.'

I tried to get out, but doors were locked, the buttons removed. The guard reached for his radio.

'Please let me out,' I said to the driver, who was staring at the nine-millimeter pistol on the guard's belt. 'I need for you to let me out.'

He turned around, frightened. 'Out here?'

'No,' I said as the guard emerged from the booth.

The driver's eyes widened.

'I mean, I do want out here, but just for a minute. So I can explain to the guard.' I pointed and spoke very slowly. 'He doesn't know who I am because I can't open the window and he can't see through the glass.'

The driver nodded some more.

'I must get out,' I said firmly and with emphasis. 'You must open the doors.'

The locks went up.

I got out and squinted in the sun. I showed my identification to the guard, who was young and militaristic.

'The glass is tinted and I couldn't see you,' he said. 'Next time just roll your window down.'

The driver had started taking my luggage out of the trunk and setting it on the road. He glanced about frantically as artillery fire cracked and gunshots popped from Marine Corps and FBI firing ranges.

'No, no, no.' I motioned him to put the luggage back in the trunk. 'Drive me there, please.' I pointed toward Jefferson, a tall tan brick building on the other side of a parking lot.

It was clear he did not want to drive me anywhere, but I got back in the car before he could get away. The trunk slammed and the guard waved us through. The air was cold, the sky bright blue.

Inside Jefferson's lobby a video display above the reception desk welcomed me to Quantico and wished me a happy and safe holiday. A young woman with freckles signed me in and gave me a magnetic card to open doors around the Academy.

'Was Santa good to you, Dr. Scarpetta?' she cheerfully asked, sorting through room keys.

'I must have been bad this year,' I said. 'I mostly got switches.'

'I can't imagine that. You're always so sweet,' she said. 'We've got you on the security floor, as usual.'

'Thank you.' I could not recall her name and had a feeling she knew it.

'How many nights will you be with us?'

'Just one.' I thought her name might be Sarah, and for some reason it seemed very important that I remember it.

She handed me two keys, one plastic, one metal.

'You're Sarah, aren't you?' I took a risk and asked.

'No, I'm Sally.' She looked hurt.

'I meant Sally,' I said, dismayed. 'Of course. I'm sorry. You always take such good care of me, and I thank you.'

She gave me an uncertain look. 'By the way. Your niece walked through maybe thirty minutes ago,'

'Which way was she headed?'

She pointed toward glass doors leading from the lobby into the heart of the building and clicked the lock free before I had a chance to insert my card. Lucy could have been en route to the PX, post office, Boardroom, ERF. She could have been heading toward her dormitory room, which was in this building but on a different wing.

I tried to imagine where my niece might be at this hour of the afternoon, but where I found her was the last place I would have looked. She was in my suite.

'Lucy!' I exclaimed when I opened the door and she was standing on the other side. 'How did you get in?'

'The same way you did,' she said none too warmly. 'I have a key.'

I carried my bags into the living room and set them down. 'Why?' I studied her face.

'My room's on this side, yours is on that.'

The security floor was for protected witnesses, spies or any other person the Department of Justice decided needed extra protection. To get into rooms, one had to pass through two sets of doors, the first requiring a code entered on a digital keypad that was reconfigured each time it was used. The second needed a magnetized card that was also often changed. I'd always suspected the telephones were monitored.

I was assigned these quarters more than a year ago because Gault was not the only worry in my life. I was baffled that Lucy had now been assigned here, too.

'I thought you were in Washington dorm,' I said.

She went into the living room and sat down. 'I was,' she said. 'And as of this afternoon, I'm here.'

I took the couch across from her. Silk flowers had been arranged, curtains drawn back from a window filled with sky. My niece wore sweatpants, running shoes, and a dark FBI sweatshirt with a hood. Her auburn hair was short, her sharp-featured face flawless except for the bright scar on her forehead. Lucy was a senior at UVA. She was beautiful and brilliant, and our relationship had always been one of extremes.

'Did they put you here because I'm here?' I was still trying to understand.

'No.'

'You didn't hug me when I came in.' It occurred to me as I got up. I kissed her cheek, and she stiffened, pulling away from my arms. 'You've been smoking.' I sat back down.

'Who told you that?'

'No one needs to tell me. I can smell it in your hair.'

'You hugged me because you wanted to see if I smell like cigarettes.'

'And you didn't hug me because you know you smell like cigarettes.'

'You're nagging me.'

'I most certainly am not,' I said.

'You are. You're worse than Grans,' she said.

'Who is in the hospital because she smoked,' I said, holding her intense green gaze.

'Since you know my secret, I may as well light up now.'

'This is a nonsmoking room. In fact, nothing is allowed in this room,' I said.

'Nothing?' She did not blink.

'Absolutely nothing.'

'You drink coffee in here. I know. I've heard you zap it in the microwave when we've been on the phone.'

'Coffee is all right.'

'You said nothing. To many people on this planet, coffee is a vice. I bet you drink alcohol in here, too.'

'Lucy, please don't smoke.'

She slipped a pack of Virginia Slim menthols out of a pocket. 'I'll go outside,' she said.

I opened windows so she could smoke, unable to believe she had taken up a habit I had shed much blood to quit. Lucy was athletic and superbly fit. I told her I did not understand.

'I'm flirting with it. I don't do it much.'

'Who moved you into my suite? Let's get back to that,' I asked as she puffed away.

'They moved me.'

'Who" is they?'

'Apparently, the order came from the top.'

'Burgess?' I referred to the assistant director in charge of the Academy.

She nodded. 'Yes.'

'What would his purpose be?' I frowned.

She tapped an ash into her palm. 'No one's told me a reason. I can only suppose it's related to ERF, to CAIN.' She paused. 'You know, the weird messages, et cetera.'

'Lucy,' I said, 'what exactly is going on?'

'We don't know,' she spoke levelly. 'But something is.'

'Gault?'

'There's no evidence that anyone's been in the system - no one who isn't supposed to be.'

'But you believe someone has.'

She inhaled deeply, like veteran smokers do. 'CAIN is not doing what we're telling him to do. He's doing something else, getting his instruction from somewhere else.'

'There's got to be a way to track that,' I said.

Her eyes sparked. 'Believe me, I'm trying.'

'I'm not questioning your efforts or ability.'

'There's no trail,' she went on. 'If someone is in there, he's leaving no tracks. And that's not possible. You can't just go into the system and tell it to send messages or do anything else without the audit log reflecting it. And we have a printer running morning, noon and night that prints every keystroke made by anybody for any reason.'

'Why are you getting angry?' I said.

'Because I'm tired of being blamed for the problems over there. The break-in wasn't my fault. I had no idea that someone who worked right next to me…' She took another drag. 'Well, I only said I'd fix it because I was asked to. Because the senator asked me to. Or asked you, really…'

'Lucy, I'm not aware that anyone is blaming you for problems with CAIN,' I said gently.

Anger burned brighter in her eyes. 'If I'm not being blamed, I wouldn't have been assigned to a room up here. What this constitutes is house arrest.'

'Nonsense. I stay here every time I come to Quantico, and I'm certainly not under house arrest.'

'They put you here for security and privacy,' she said. 'But that's not why I'm here. I'm being blamed again. I'm being watched. I can tell it in the way certain people are treating me over there.' She nodded in the direction of ERF, which was across the street from the Academy.

'What happened today?' I asked.

She went into the kitchen, ran water over the cigarette butt and dropped it into the disposal. She sat back down and didn't say anything. I studied her and got more unsettled. I did not know why she was this angry, and whenever she acted in a way that could not be explained, I was frightened again.

Lucy's car accident could have been fatal. Her head injury could have ruined her most remarkable gift, and I was assaulted by images of hematomas and a skull fractured like a hard-boiled egg. I thought of the woman we called Jane with her shaved head and scars, and I imagined Lucy in places where no one knew her name.

'Have you been feeling all right?' I asked my niece.

She shrugged.

'What about the headaches?'

'I still get them.' Suspicion shadowed her eyes. 'Sometimes the Midrin helps. Sometimes it just makes me throw up. The only thing that really works is Fiorinal. But I don't have any of that.'

'You don't need any of that.'

'You're not the one who gets the headaches.'

'I get plenty of headaches. You don't need to be on barbiturates,' I answered. 'You're sleeping and eating all right, and getting exercise?'

'What is this, a doctor's appointment?'

'In a matter of speaking, since it just so happens I'm a doctor. Only you didn't make an appointment but I'm nice enough to see you anyway.'

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 'I'm doing fine,' she said less defensively.

'Something happened today,' I said again.

'I guess you haven't talked to Commander Penn.'

'Not since this morning. I didn't know you knew her.'

'Her department's on-line with us, with CAIN. At twelve noon CAIN called the Transit Police VICAP terminal. I guess you had already left for the airport.'

I nodded, my stomach tightening as I thought of Davila's beeper going off in the morgue. 'What was the message this time?' I asked.

'I have it if you want to see it.'

'Yes,' I said.

Lucy went into her room and returned carrying a briefcase. She unzipped it and pulled out a stack of papers, handing me one that was a printout from the VICAP terminal located in the Communications Unit, which was under Frances Penn's command. It read:

— - -MESSAGE PQ21 96701 001145 BEGINS- - -

FROM:-CAIN

TO: - ALL UNITS amp; COMMANDS

SUBJECT: - DEAD COPS

TO ALL COMMANDS CONCERNED:

MEMBERS WILL, FOR THE PURPOSE OF SAFETY WHEN RESPONDING TO OR BEING ON PATROL IN THE SUBWAY TUNNELS, WEAR HELMETS. - - -MESSAGE PQ21 96701 001145 ENDS- - -

I stared at the printout for a while, unnerved and inflamed. Then I asked, 'Is there a username associated with whoever logged on to type this?'

'No.'

'And there's absolutely no way to trace this?'

'Not by conventional means.'

'What do you think?'

'I think when ERF was broken into, whoever got into CAIN planted a program.'

'Like a virus?' I asked.

'It is a virus, and it has been attached to a file that we just haven't thought of. It's allowing someone to move inside our system without leaving tracks.'

I thought of Gault backlit by his flashlight in the tunnel last night, of endless rails leading deeper into darkness and disease. Gault moved freely through spaces most people could not see. He nimbly stepped over greasy steel, needles and the fetid nests of humans and rats. He was a virus. He had somehow gotten into our bodies and our buildings and our technology.

'CAIN is infected by a virus,' I said. 'In summary.'

'An unusual one. This isn't a virus oriented toward crashing the hard disk or trashing data. This virus isn't generic. It is specific for the Crime Artificial Intelligence Network because its purpose is to allow someone access to CAIN and the VICAP database.

This virus is like a master key. It opens up every room in the house.'

'And it's attached to an existing program.'

'You might say it has a host,' she said. 'Yes. Some program routinely used. A virus can't cause its damage unless the computer goes through a routine or subroutine which causes a host program - like autoexec.bat in DOS - to be read.'

'I see. And this virus is not embedded in any files that are read when the computer is booted, for example.'

Lucy shook her head.

'How many program files are there in CAIN?'

'Oh my God,' she said. 'Thousands. And some of them are long enough to wrap around this building. The virus could be attached anywhere, and the situation is further complicated because I didn't do all of the programming. I'm not as familiar with files others wrote.'

Others meant Carrie Grethen, who had been Lucy's programming partner and intimate friend. Carrie had also known Gault and was responsible for the ERF break-in. Lucy would not talk about her and avoided saying her name.

'Is there any possibility this virus might be attached only to programs Carrie wrote?' I asked.

The expression did not change on Lucy's face. 'It might be attached to one of the programs I didn't write. It might also be attached to one I did. I don't know. I'm looking. It may take a long time.'

The telephone rang.

'That's probably Jan.' She got up and went into the kitchen.

I glanced at my watch. I was due down in the unit in half an hour. Lucy placed her hand over the receiver. 'Do you care if Jan drops by? We're going running.'

'I don't mind in the least,' I said.

'She wants to know if you want to run with us.'

I smiled and shook my head. I couldn't keep up with Lucy even if she smoked two packs a day, and Janet could pass for a professional athlete. The two of them gave me the vague sensation of being old and left in the wrong drawer.

'How about something to drink?' Lucy was off the phone and inside the refrigerator.

'What are you offering?' I watched her slight figure bent over, one arm holding open the door while the other slid cans around on shelves.

'Diet Pepsi, Zima, Gatorade and Perrier.'

'Zima?'

'You haven't had it?'

'I don't drink beer.'

'It's not like beer. You'll like it.'

'I didn't know they had room service here,' I said with a smile.

'I got some stuff at the PX.'

'I'll have Perrier.'

She came over with our drinks.

'Aren't there antivirus programs?' I said.

'Antivirus programs only find known viruses like Friday the Thirteenth, the Maltese Amoeba, the Stoned virus, Michelangelo. What we're dealing with inside CAIN was created specifically for CAIN. It was an inside job. There is no antivirus program unless I write one.'

'Which you can't do until you find the virus first.'

She took a big swallow of Gatorade.

'Lucy, should CAIN be shut down?'

She got up. 'Let me check on Jan. She can't get through those outer doors and I doubt we'll hear her knocking.'

I got up too and carried my bags into my bedroom with its plain decor and simple pine wardrobe. Unlike other rooms, the security suite had private baths. Through windows I had an unspoiled view of snow-patched fields unrolling into endless woods. The sun was so bright it felt like spring, and I wished there were time to bathe. I wanted to scrub New York away.

'Aunt Kay? We're out of here,' Lucy called as I brushed my teeth.

I quickly rinsed my mouth and returned to the living room. Lucy had slipped on a pair of Oakleys and was stretching by the door. Her friend had one foot propped up on a chair as she tightened a shoelace.

'Good afternoon, Dr. Scarpetta,' Janet said to me, quickly straightening up. 'I hope you don't mind my stopping by. I didn't mean to disturb you.'

Despite my efforts at putting her at ease, she always acted like a corporal startled by Patton walking in. She was a new agent, and I had first noticed her when I was a guest lecturer here last month. I remembered showing slides about violent death and crime scene preservation while she kept her eyes on me from the back of the room. In the dark I could feel her studying me from her chair, and it made me curious that during breaks she did not speak to anyone. She would disappear downstairs.

Later I learned she and Lucy were friends, and perhaps that and shyness explained Janet's demeanor toward me. Well built from hours in the gym, she had shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes that were almost violet. If all went well, she would graduate from the Academy in less than two months.

'If you'd ever like to run with us, Dr. Scarpetta, you'd be welcome,' Janet politely repeated her invitation.

'You are very kind.' I smiled. 'And I am flattered that you would think I could.'

'Of course you could.'

'No, she couldn't.' Lucy finished her Gatorade and set the empty bottle on the counter. 'She hates running. She thinks negative thoughts the whole time she's doing it.'

I returned to the bathroom as they went out the door, and I washed my face and stared in the mirror. My blond hair seemed grayer than it had this morning and the cut had somehow gotten worse. I wore no makeup, and my face looked like it had just come out of the dryer and needed to be pressed. Lucy and Janet were unblemished, taut and bright, as if nature took joy in sculpting and polishing only the young. I brushed my teeth again and that made me think of Jane.

Benton Wesley's unit had changed names many times and was now part of HRT. But its location remained sixty feet below the Academy in a windowless area that once had been Hoover's bomb shelter. I found Wesley in his office talking on the phone. He glanced at me as he flipped through paperwork in a thick file.

Spread out in front of him were scene photographs from a recent consultation that had nothing to do with Gault. This victim was a man who had been stabbed and slashed 122 times. He had been strangled with a ligature, his body found facedown on a bed in a motel room in Florida.

'It's a signature crime. Well, the blatant overkill and the unusual configuration of the bindings,' Wesley was saying. 'Right. A loop around each wrist, handcuff style.'

I sat down. Wesley had reading glasses on and I could tell he had been running his fingers through his hair. He looked tired. My eyes rested on fine oil paintings on his walls and autographed books behind glass. He was often contacted by people writing novels and scripts, but he did not flaunt celebrity connections. I think he found them embarrassing and in poor taste. I did not believe he would talk to anyone if the decision were left completely up to him.

'Yes, it was a very bloody method of attack, to say the least. The others were, too. We're talking about a theme of domination, a ritual driven by rage.'

I noticed he had several pale blue FBI manuals on his desk that were from ERF. One of them was an instruction manual for CAIN that Lucy had helped write, and pages were marked in numerous places with paper clips. I wondered if she had marked them or if he had, and my intuition answered the question as my chest got tight. My heart hurt the way it always did when Lucy was in trouble.

'That threatened his sense of domination.' Wesley met my eyes. 'Yes, the reaction's going to be anger. Always, with someone like this.'

His tie was black with pale gold stripes, and typically his shirt was white and starched. He wore Department of Justice cuff links, his wedding band and an understated gold watch with a black leather band that Connie had given him for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He and his wife came from money, and the Wesleys lived quietly well.

He hung up the phone and took off his glasses.

'What's the problem?' I asked, and I hated the way he made my pulse pick up.

He gathered photographs and dropped them inside a manilla envelope. 'Another victim in Florida.'

'The Orlando area again?'

'Yes. I'll get you reports as soon as we get them.'

I nodded and changed the subject to Gault. 'I'm assuming you know what happened in New York,' I said.

'The pager.'

I nodded again.

'I'm afraid I know.' He winced. 'He's taunting us, showing his contempt. He's playing his games, only it's getting worse.'

'It's getting much worse. But we shouldn't focus only on him,' I said.

He listened, eyes locked on mine, hands folded on the case file of the murdered man he had just been discussing on the phone.

'It would be all too easy to become so obsessed with Gault that we don't really work the cases. For example, it is very important to identify this woman we think he murdered in Central Park.'

'I would assume everyone thinks that's important, Kay.'

'Everyone will say they think it is important,' I replied, and anger began quietly stirring. 'But in fact, the cops, the Bureau want to catch Gault, and identifying this homeless lady isn't a priority. She's just another poor, nameless person prisoners will bury in Potter's Field.'

'Obviously, she is a priority to you.'

'Absolutely.'

'Why?'

'I think she has something yet to say to us.'

'About Gault?'

'Yes.'

'On what are you basing this?'

'Instinct,' I said. 'And she's a priority because we are bound morally and professionally to do everything we can for her. She has a right to be buried with her name.'

'Of course she does. NYPD, the Transit Police, the Bureau - we all want her identified.'

But I did not believe him. 'We really don't care,' I flatly said. 'Not the cops, not the medical examiners, and not this unit. We already know who killed her, so who she is no longer matters. That's the black and white of it when you're talking about a jurisdiction as overwhelmed by violence as New York is.'

Wesley stared off, running his tapered fingers over a Mont Blanc pen. 'I'm afraid there's some truth in what you're saying.' He looked back at me. 'We don't care because we can't. It isn't because we don't want to. I want Gault caught before he kills again. That's my bottom line.'

'As it should be. And we don't know that this dead woman can't help with that. Maybe she will.'

I saw depression and felt it in the weariness of his voice. 'It would seem her only link to Gault is that they met in the museum,' he said. 'We've been through her personal effects, and nothing among them might lead us to him. So my question is, what else might you learn from her that would help us catch him?'

'I don't know,'1 said. 'But when I have unidentified cases in Virginia, I don't rest until I've done all I can to solve them. This case is in New York, but I'm involved because I work with your unit and you have been invited into the investigation.'

I talked with conviction, as if the case of Jane's vicious murder were being tried in this room. 'If I am not allowed to uphold my own standards,' I went on, 'then I cannot serve as a consultant for the Bureau any longer.'

Wesley listened to all this with troubled patience. I knew he felt much of the same frustration that I did, but there was a difference. He had not grown up poor, and when we had our worst fights, I held that against him.

'If she were an important person,' I said, 'everyone would care.'

He remained silent.

'There is no justice if you're poor,' I said, 'unless the issue is forced.'

He stared at me.

'Benton, I'm forcing the issue.'

'Explain to me what you want to do,' he said.

'I want to do whatever it takes to find out who she is. I want you to support me.'

He studied me for a moment. He was analyzing. 'Why this victim?' he asked.

'I thought I'd just explained that.'

'Be careful,' he said. 'Be careful that your motivation isn't subjective.'

'What are you suggesting?'

'Lucy.'

I felt a rush of irritation.

'Lucy could have been as badly head injured as this woman was,' he said. 'Lucy's always been an orphan, of sorts, and not so long ago she was missing, wandering around in New England, and you had to go find her.'

'You're accusing me of projecting.'

'I'm not accusing you. I'm exploring the possibility with you.'

'I'm simply attempting to do my job,' I said. 'And I have no desire to be psychoanalyzed.'

'I understand.' He paused. 'Do whatever you need to do. I'll help in any way I can. And I'm sure Pete will, too.'

Then we switched to the more treacherous subject of Lucy and CAIN, and this Wesley did not want to talk about. He got up for coffee as the phone in the outer office rang, and his secretary took another message. The phone had not stopped ringing since my arrival, and I knew it was always like this. His office was like mine. The world was full of desperate people who had our numbers and no one else to call.

'Just tell me what you think she did,' I said when he got back.

He set my coffee before me. 'You're speaking like her aunt,' he said.

'No. Now I'm speaking like her mother.'

'I would rather you and I talk about this like two professionals,' he said.

'Fine. You can start by filling me in.'

'The espionage that began last October when ERF was broken into is still going on,' he said. 'Someone is inside CAIN.'

'That much I know.'

'We don't know who is doing it,' he said.

'We assume it's Gault, I suppose,' I said.

Wesley reached for his coffee. He met my eyes. 'I'm certainly no expert in computers. But there's something you need to see.'

He opened a thin file folder and withdrew a sheet of paper. As he handed it to me I recognized it as a printout from a computer screen.

'That's a page of CAIN's audit log for the exact time that the most recent message was sent to the VICAP terminal in the Transit Police Department's Communications Unit,' he said. 'Do you notice anything unusual?'

I thought of the printout Lucy had shown me, of the evil message about 'Dead Cops.' I had to stare for a minute at the log-ins and log-outs, the IDs, dates and times before I realized the problem. I felt fear.

Lucy's user ID was not traditional in that it was not comprised of the initial of her first name and first seven letters of her surname. Instead, she called herself LUCYTALK, and according to this audit trail she had been signed on as the superuser when CAIN had sent the message to New York.

'Have you questioned her about this?' I asked Wesley.

'She's been questioned and wasn't concerned because as you can see from the printout, she's on and off the system all day long, and sometimes after hours, as well.'

'She is concerned. I don't care what she said to you, Benton. She feels she's been moved to the security floor so she can be watched.'

'She is being watched.'

'Just because she was signed on at the same time the message was sent to New York doesn't mean she sent it,' I persisted.

'I realize that. There's nothing else in the audit log to indicate she sent it. There's nothing to indicate anybody sent it, for that matter.'

'Who brought this to your attention?' I then asked, for I knew Wesley did not routinely look at audit logs.

'Burgess.'

'Then, someone from ERF brought it to his attention first.'

'Obviously.'

'There are still people over there who don't trust Lucy, because of what happened last fall.'

His gaze was steady. 'I can't do anything about that, Kay. She has to prove herself. We can't do that for her. You can't do that for her.'

'I'm not trying to do anything for her,' I said hotly. 'All I ask is fairness. Lucy is not to blame for the virus in CAIN. She did not put it there. She's trying to do something about it, and frankly, if she can't, I don't think anyone will be able to help. The entire system will be corrupted.'

He picked up his coffee but changed his mind and set it back down.

'And I don't believe she's been put on the security floor because some people think she's sabotaging CAIN. If you really thought that, you'd send her packing. The last thing you'd do is keep her here.'

'Not necessarily,' he said, but he could not fool me.

'Tell me the truth.'

He was thinking, looking for a way out.

'You assigned Lucy to the security floor, didn't you?' I went on. 'It wasn't Burgess. It wasn't because of this log-in time you just showed me. That's flimsy.'

'Not to some people it isn't,' he said. 'Someone over there raised a red flag and asked me to get rid of her. I said not now. We would watch her first.'

'Are you telling me you think Lucy is the virus?' I was incredulous.

'No.' He leaned forward in his chair. 'I think Gault is the virus. And I want Lucy to help us track him.'

I looked at him as if he had just pulled out a gun and shot it into the air. 'No,' I said with feeling.

'Kay, listen to me…'

'Absolutely not. Leave her out of this. She's not a goddam FBI agent.'

'You're overreacting…'

But I would not let him talk. 'She's a college student, for God's sake. She has no business-' My voice caught. 'I know her. She'll try to communicate with him. Don't you see?' I looked fiercely at him. 'You don't know her, Benton!'

'I think I do.'

'I won't let you use her like this.'

'Let me explain.'

'You should shut CAIN down,' I said.

'I can't do that. It might be the only trail Gault leaves.' He paused as I continued to glare at him. 'Lives are at stake. Gault hasn't finished killing.'

I blurted, 'That's exactly why I don't want Lucy even thinking about him!'

Wesley was silent. He looked toward the shut door, then back at me. 'He already knows who she is,' he said.

'He doesn't know much about her.'

'We don't know how much he knows about her. But at the very least he probably knows what she looks like.'

I could not think. 'How?'

'From when your American Express gold card was stolen,' he said. 'Hasn't Lucy told you?'

'Told me what?'

'The things she kept in her desk.' When he could see I did not know what he was talking about, he abruptly caught himself. I sensed he had brushed against details he would not tell me.

'What things?' I asked.

'Well,' he went on, 'she kept a letter in her desk at ERF - a letter from you. The one that had the credit card in it.'

'I know about that.'

'Right. Also inside this letter was a photograph of you and Lucy together in Miami. You were sitting in your mother's backyard, apparently.'

I shut my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath as he grimly went on.

'Gault also knows Lucy is your point of greatest vulnerability. I don't want him fixing on her, either. But what I'm trying to suggest to you is that he probably already has. He's broken into a world where she is god. He has taken over CAIN.'

'So that's why you moved her,' I said.

Wesley watched me as he struggled for a way to help. I saw the hell behind his cool reserve and sensed his terrible pain. He, too, had children.

'You moved her on the security floor with me,' I said. 'You're afraid Gault might come after her.'

Still he did not speak.

'I want her to return to UVA, to Charlottesville. I want her back there tomorrow,' I said with a ferocity I did not feel. What I really wanted was for Lucy not to know my world at all, and that would never be possible.

'She can't,' he simply said. 'And she can't stay with you in Richmond. To tell you the truth, she really can't stay anywhere right now but here. This is where she's safest.'

'She can't stay here the rest of her life,' I said.

'Until he's caught…'

'He may never be caught, Benton!'

He looked wearily at me. 'Then both of you may end up in our Protected Witness Program.'

'I will not give up my identity. My life. How is that any better than being dead?'

'It is better,' he said quietly, and I knew he was seeing bodies kicked, decapitated, and with bullet wounds.

I got up. 'What do I do about my stolen credit card?' I numbly asked.

'Cancel it,' he said. 'I was hoping we could use money from seized assets, from drug raids. But we can't.' He paused as I shook my head in disbelief. 'It's not my choice. You know the budget problems. You have them, too.'

'Lord,' I said. 'I thought you wanted to trail him.'

'Your credit card isn't likely to show us where he is, only where he's been.'

'I can't believe this.'

'Blame it on the politicians.'

'I don't want to hear about budget problems or politicians,' I exclaimed.

'Kay, the Bureau can barely afford ammunition for the ranges these days. And you know our staffing problems. I'm personally working a hundred and thirty-nine cases even as we speak. Last month two of my best people retired.

'Now my unit's down to nine. Nine. That's a total of ten of us trying to cover the entire United States plus any cases submitted from abroad. Hell, the only reason we have you is we don't pay you.'

'I don't do this for money.'

'You can cancel your Amex card,' he said wearily. 'I'd do it immediately.'

I looked a long time at him and left.