Jack and Jill

PART 4

A-HUNTING WE WILL GO

I LAY ON THE COUCH with Rosie the cat and a full sack of nightmares.

Rosie was a beautiful, reddish brown Abyssinian. She was wonderfully athletic, independent, feral, and also a great nuzzler.

She reminded me of the much larger cats of Africa in the way she moved. One weekend morning she just showed up at the house, liked it, and stayed.

“You're not going to leave us one day, are you, Rosie? Leave us like you came?” Rosie shook her whole body “What a dopey question,” she was telling me. “No, absolutely not. I'm part of this family now.”

I couldn't sleep. Even Rosie's purring didn't relax me. I was a few aches beyond bone-tired, but my mind was racing badly I was counting murders, not sheep. About ten o'clock I decided to go for a drive to clear my head. Maybe get in touch with my chi energy. Maybe get a sharper insight into one of the murder cases.

I drove with the car windows open. It was minus three degrees outside.

I didn't know exactly where I was going -- and yet unconsciously, I did know. Shrink shrinks shrink.

Both murder cases were running hard and fast inside my head.

They were on dangerous parallel tracks. I kept reviewing and re-reviewing my talk with the CIA contract killer Andrew Klauk. I was trying to connect what he'd said to the Jack and Jill murders.

Could one of the “ghosts” be Jack?

I found myself on New York Avenue, which is also Route 30 and eventually turns into the John Hanson Highway. Christine Johnson lived out this way, on the far side of the beltway in Prince Georges County. I knew where Christine lived. I'd looked it up in the casenotes of the first detective who interviewed her after Shanelle Green's murder.

This is a crazy thing, I thought as I drove in the direction of her town -- Mitchellville.

Earlier that night, I'd talked to Damon about how things were going at school now, and then about the teachers there. I eventually got around to the principal. Damon saw through my act like the little Tasmanian devil that he is sometimes.

“You like her, don't you?” he asked me, and his eyes lit up like twin beacons. "You do, don't you, Daddy? Everybody does.

Even Nana does. She says Mrs. Johnson is your type. You like her, right?"

“There's nothing not to like about Mrs. Johnson,” I said to Damon. “She's married, though. Don't forget that.”

“Don't you forget,” Damon said and laughed like Sampson.

And now here I was driving through the suburban neighborhood relatively late at night. What in hell was I doing? What was I thinking of? Had I been spending so much time around madmen that finally some of it rubbed off? Or was I actually following one of my better instincts?

I spotted Summer Street and made a quick right turn. There was a mild squeal of tires that pierced the perfect quiet of the neighborhood. I had to admit it was beautiful out in subur-bia, even at night. The streets were all lit up. Lots of Christmas lights and expensive holiday props. There were wide curbs for rain runoff. White sidewalks. Colonial-style lampposts on all the street corners.

I wondered if it was hard for Christine Johnson to leave this safe, lovely enclave to come to work in Southeast every day. I wondered what her personal demons were. I wondered why she worked such long hours. And what her husband was like.

Then I saw Christine Johnson's dark blue car in the driveway of a large, brick-faced Colonial home. My heart jumped a little.

Suddenly, everything became very real for me.

I continued up the blacktop street until I was well past her house. Then I pulled oveve who interviewed her after Shanelle Green's murder.

This is a crazy thing, I thought as I drove in the direction of her town -- Mitchellville.

Earlier that night, I'd talked to Damon about how things were going at school now, and then about the teachers there. I eventually got around to the principal. Damon saw through my act like the little Tasmanian devil that he is sometimes.

“You like her, don't you?” he asked me, and his eyes lit up like twin beacons. "You do, don't you, Daddy? Everybody does.

Even Nana does. She says Mrs. Johnson is your type. You like her, right?"

“There's nothing not to like about Mrs. Johnson,” I said to Damon. “She's married, though. Don't forget that.”

“Don't you forget,” Damon said and laughed like Sampson.

And now here I was driving through the suburban neighborhood relatively late at night. What in hell was I doing? What was I thinking of? Had I been spending so much time around madmen that finally some of it rubbed off? Or was I actually following one of my better instincts?

I spotted Summer Street and made a quick right turn. There was a mild squeal of tires that pierced the perfect quiet of the neighborhood. I had to admit it was beautiful out in subur-bia, even at night. The streets were all lit up. Lots of Christmas lights and expensive holiday props. There were wide curbs for rain runoff. White sidewalks. Colonial-style lampposts on all the street corners.

I wondered if it was hard for Christine Johnson to leave this safe, lovely enclave to come to work in Southeast every day. I wondered what her personal demons were. I wondered why she worked such long hours. And what her husband was like.

Then I saw Christine Johnson's dark blue car in the driveway of a large, brick-faced Colonial home. My heart jumped a little.

Suddenly, everything became very real for me.

I continued up the blacktop street until I was well past her house. Then I pulled over against the curb and shut off the headlights. Tried to shut down the roaring inside my head. I stared at the rear of somebody's shiny white Ford Explorer parked out on the street. I stared for a good ninety seconds, about how long the white Explorer would have lasted before it was stolen on the streets of D.C.

I had the conscious thought that maybe this was not such a good idea. Doctor Cross didn't exactly approve of Doctor Cross's actions. This was real close to being inappropriate behavior. Parking in the dark in a posh, suburban neighborhood like this wasn't a real sound concept, either.

A few therapist jokes were running around inside my head.

Learn to dread one day at a time. You're still having a lousy childhood.

If you're really happy, you must be in denial.

“Just go home,” I said out loud in the darkened car. “Just say no.”

I continued to sit in the darkness, though, listening to the occasional theatrical sigh, the loud debate buzzing inside my head.

I could smell pine trees and smoke from someone's chimney through the open car window. My engine was clicking gently as it cooled. I knew a little about the neighborhood: successful lawyers and doctors, urban planners, professors from the University of Maryland, a few retired officers from Andrews Air Force Base.

Very nice and very secure. No need for a dragonslayer out here.

All right then, go see her. Go see both of them, Christine and her husband.

I supposed that I could bluff my way through some trumped up reason why I had to come out to Mitchellville. I had the gift of gab when I needed it.

I started the car again, the old Porsche. I didn't know what I was going to do, which way this was going to lead. I took my foot off the brake, and the automobile crept along on its own. slowly, I crept.

I continued for a full block like that, listening to the crunch of a few leaves under the tires, the occasional pop of a small stone.

Every noise seemed very loud and magnified to me.

I finally stopped in front of the Johnson house. Right in front.

I noticed the bristle&brush, manicured lawn, and well-trimmed yews.

Moment of truth. Moment of decision. Moment of crisis.

I could see lights burning brightly inside the house, tiny fires.

Somebody seemed to be up at the Johnson house. The dark blue Mercedes sedan was sitting peacefully against the closed garage door.

She has a nice car and a beautiful home. Christine Johnson doesn't need any terrible trouble from you. Don't bring your monsters out here. She has a lawyer husband. She's doing real fine for herself.

What did she say her husband's name was -- George? George the lawyer lobbyist. George the rich lawyer lobbyist.

There was only one car in the driveway. Her car. The garage door was closed. I could picture another car in there, maybe a Lexus. Maybe a gas grill for cookouts, too. Power lawn mower, leaf blower, maybe a couple of mountain bikes for weekend fun.

I shut off the engine and got out of my car.

The dragonslayer comes to Mitchellville.

I WAS DEFINITELY CURIOUS about Christine Johnson, and maybe it was a little more complicated than that. You like her, don't you, Daddy? Maybe? Yes, I did like her -- a lot. At any rate, I felt as if I needed to see her, even if it made me feel tremendously awkward and foolish. A good thought struck me as I climbed out of the car: how much more foolish to walk away.

Besides, Christine Johnson was part of the complex homicide case I was working on. There was a logical enough reason for me to want to talk to her. Two students from her school had been murdered so far. Two of her babies. Why that school? Why had a killer come there? So close to my home?

I walked to the front door and was actually glad that all the shimmering houselights were turned on bright. I didn't want her husband, or any of the neighbors in Mitchellville, to spot me approaching the house in a cloak of shadows and darkness.

I rang the bell, heard melodious chimes, and waited like a porch sculpture. A dog barked loudly somewhere inside the house. Then Christine Johnson appeared at the front door.

She had on faded jeans, a wrinkled yellow crewneck sweater, white half-socks, and no shoes. A tortoise shell comb pulled her hair back to one side, and she was wearing her glasses. She looked as if she were working at home. Still working at this late hour.

Peas in a pod, weren't we? Well, not exactly. I was a long way from my pod, actually.

“Detective Cross?” She was surprised; understandably so. I was kind of surprised to be standing there myself.

“Nothing has happened on the case,” I quickly reassured her.

“I just have a few more questions.” That was true. Don't lie to her, Alex. Don't you dare lie to her. Not even once. Not ever.

She smiled then. Her eyes seemed to smile as well. They were very large and very brown, and I had to stop staring at them immediately. “You do work too late, too hard, even under the current circumstances,” she said.

“I couldn't turn this horrible thing off tonight. There are two cases, actually. So here I am. If this is a bad time, I'll stop by at the school tomorrow. That's no problem.”

“No, come on in,” she said. “I know how busy you are. I can imagine. Come in, please. The house is a mess, like our government, all the usual boilerplate copy applies.”

She led me back through an entrance way with a cream marble floor and past the living room with its comfortable-looking sectional sofa and lots of earth colors: sienna, ocher, and burnt umber.

There was no guided tour, though. No more questions about why I was there. A little too much silence suddenly. My chi energy was draining off somewhere.

She took me into the huge kitchen. She went to the refrigerator, a big, double-door jobbie that opened with a loud whoosh.

“Let me see, we've got beer, diet cola, sun tea. I can make coffee or hot tea if you'd like. You do work too hard. That's for sure.”

She sounded a little like a teacher now. Understanding, but gently reminding me that I might have areas of improvement.

“A beer sounds pretty good,” I told her. I glanced around the kitchen, which was easily twice the size of ours at home. There were rows of white custom cabinets. A skylight in the ceiling. A flyer on the fridge promoting a “Walk for the Homeless.” She had a very nice home -- she and George did.

I noted an embroidered cloth on a wall stretcher. Swahili words: Kwenda mzuri. It's a farewell that means “go well.” A gentle hint? Word to the wise?

“I'm glad to hear you'll have a beer,” she said smiling. “That would mean you're at least close to knocking off for the day. It's almost ten-thirty. Did you know that? What time is it on your clock?”

“Is it that late? I'm real sorry,” I said to her. “We can do this tomorrow.”

Christine brought me a Heineken and iced tea for herself.

She sat across from me at an island counter that subdivided the kitchen. The house was far from being the mess she'd warned me about when I came in. It was nicely lived-in. There was a sweet, charming display of drawings from the Truth School on one wall.

A beautiful mud cloth on a stretcher also grabbed my eye.

“So. What's up, doc?” she asked. “What brings you outside the beltway?”

“Honestly? I couldn't sleep. I took a drive. I drove out this way. Then I had the bright idea that maybe we could cover some ground on the case... or maybe I just needed to talk to somebody.”

I finally confessed, and it felt pretty good. Directionally good, anyway.

“Well, that's okay. That's fine. I can relate to that. I couldn't sleep myself,” she said. “I've been wound tight ever since Shanelle's murder. And then poor Vernon Wheatley. I was pruning the plants, with ER on the television for background noise. Pretty pathetic, don't you think?”

“Not really. I don't think it's so strange. ER is good. By the way, you have a beautiful house out here.”

I could see the living room TV set from the kitchen. A mammoth Sony playing the medical drama. A black retriever, a young dog, wandered in from the direction of a narrow hallway with oatmeal-colored carpeted stairs. “That's Meg,” Christine told me.

“She was watching ER, too. Meg loves a good melodrama.” The dog nuzzled me, then licked my hand.

I don't know why I wanted to tell her, but I did.

"I play the piano at night sometimes. There's a sun porch in our house, so the awful racket doesn't bother the kids too much.

Either that or they've learned to sleep right through it,“ I said. ”A little Gershwin, Brahms, Jellyroll Morton at one in the morning never hurt anyone."

Christine Johnson smiled, and seemed at ease with this kind of talk. She was a very self-assured person, very centered. I'd noticed that right from the first night. I had sensed it about her.

“Damon has mentioned your nocturnal piano playing a few times at school. You know, he occasionally brags about you to the teachers. He's a very nice boy, in addition to being a brainiac. We like him tremendously”

“Thank you. I like him a lot myself. He's lucky we have the Sojourner Truth School nearby”

“Yes, I think he is,” Christine agreed. “A lot of D.C. schools are a complete disgrace, and so sad. The Truth is a small miracle for the children who attend.”

“Your miracle?” I asked her.

“No, no, no. A lot of people are responsible, least of all me. My husband's law firm has contributed some guilt money I just help to keep the miracle going. I believe in miracles, though. How long has it been since your wife died, Alex?” she suddenly changed gears. But Christine Johnson made the question conversational and low-key and very natural to ask, even if it wasn't. Still, it took me by surprise. I sensed I didn't have to answer if I didn't want to.

“It's going to be five years soon,” I told her, partly holding my breath as I did. “This March, actually Jannie was still a little baby She was less than a year old. I remember coming in and holding her that night. She had no idea that she was comforting me.”

The two of us were getting comfortable talking at the kitchen counter. We were both opening up quite a lot. Small talk at first. Then bigger talk. Sojourner Truth School killer talk. Maybe something helpful for the investigation. It went on like that until almost midnight.

I finally told her I needed to be heading home. She didn't disagree.

The look in her eyes told me that she understood everything that had gone on here tonight, and all of it was okay with her.

At the front door, Christine surprised me again. She pecked me on the cheek.

“Come back, Alex,” she said, “if you need to talk again. I'll be here tending to my shrubs in my ostentatious house. Kwenda mzuri,” she said.

We left it like that. Go well. A strange tableau at a strange time in our lives. I had no idea whether her lawyer husband was home or not. Was he up in the bedroom sleeping? Was his name really George? Were they still together?

It was another mystery to solve some other day, but not that day.

On the drive home, I pondered whether I should feel bad about the unconventional, surprise visit to Christine Johnson's house. I decided that I shouldn't, that I wouldn't even get embarrassed about it at a later date. She'd made that possible for me. She was incredibly easy to be around. Absolutely incredible.

It was painful in a way When I got home, I played the piano for another hour or so.

Beethoven, then Mozart. Classical felt right to me. I went up and peeked in on Damon andJannie. I gently pecked their cheeks, as Christine Johnson had pecked mine. I finally fell asleep on the downstairs couch. I didn't feel sorry for myself there, but I did feel very alone.

I slept until several shrill rings of the phone woke me, shooting adrenaline through my body like electric current.

It was Jack and Jill again.

TYSONS GALLERIA in Tysons Corner was, along with the neighboring Tysons Comer Mall, one of the largest shopping complexes in the United States, maybe in the world. Sam Harrison had parked in the enormous Galleria lot at a little past 6:00 At least a hundred cars were already there, though Versace and Neiman Marcus, FAO Schwarz and Tiljengrist wouldn't open until ten. Maryland Bagels was open and smells from the popular local bakery filled the air. Jack hadn't come to Tysons Corner for a piping-hot blueberry bagel, though.

From the parking area of the mall, he jogged to Chain Bridge Road in McLean. He wore a blue and white Fila jacket and running shorts and looked as if he belonged in the $400,000-to-$1,500,000-per-house neighborhood. That was one of the important rules in his game: Always appear to belong, to fit in, and soon you will.

With his short blond hair and trim build, he looked as if he might be a commercial pilot with USAir or Delta. Or perhaps just one of the neighborhood's many professionals, a doctor or lawyer- whatever. He definitely seemed to belong. He fit in seamlessly

He had known from the start that he would have to carry out this murder alone. Jill shouldn't be out here in McLean Village.

This was the really bad one for him personally. This one was over the top, even for Jack and Jill, even for the game of games.

The murder this morning would be extrenely dangerous.

This target might know that someone was coming for him.

Number four was going to be a hard one, done the hard way.

He thought about all this as he steadily jogged toward his final destination in the pretty and peaceful Washington suburb.

As he crossed onto Livingston Road, he attempted to clear his mind of everything except the terrible murder that lay ahead of him.

He was Jack once again, the brutal celebrity stalker. He was going to prove it in just a few minutes.

This one was going to be tough, the hardest so far. The man he was about to kill had been one of his best friends.

In the game of life and death, that didn't matter.

He had no best friends. He had no friends at all.

I AM SAM, Sam I am, he was thinking as he ran.

But he wasn't really Sam Harrison.

He didn't have blond hair, or wear trendy jogging suits with logos on the breast pocket, either.

Who in hell am I? What am I becoming? he asked himself as his feet struck the pavement hard.

He knew that the house at 31 Livingston Road was guarded by a sophisticated security system. He would have expected nothing less.

He ran at a quickening pace now. Eventually, he veered off the macadam road and disappeared into underbrush and pine trees.

He kept running through the woods.

He was in good shape and hadn't broken much of a sweat yet.

The cold weather helped. He was alert, fresh, ready for the game to resume, ready to murder again.

He figured that he could get up close, perhaps as near as ten yards from the house without being seen. Then a quick dash to the garage.

For that short period, he would be out in the open. Completely exposed. There was no way around it and, God knows, he had tried to figure out an alternative attack plan.

He was about to attack a house in McLean. How incredible that seemed. This was like a war. A war fought at home. A revolutionary war.

There were two other large Colonial-style houses that he could see from the light woods. No lights on yet; no one seemed to be up anywhere on Livingston Road. So far, his luck was holding okay. His luck, or his skill, or maybe a combination of both.

As far as he could tell, no one was awake at 31 Livingston. He couldn't be sure until he was inside the house itself, and then it would be too late to turn back.

The FBI could be waiting in there or lurking right in these woods. Nothing would surprise him now. Anything could happen, at any time, to either him or Jill.

He decided to walk out from the woods, looking calm, looking casual. As if he belonged. He didn't make much noise as he gently raised the garage door. He quickly ducked under the partially open door and he was inside.

He went straight to the Nutone security box and punched in the code. So much for high security in the suburbs. There was no effective protection, really. Not from people like him.

He entered the main part of the house. His heart pounded like a battering ram inside his chest. There was a sheen of sweat on his neck now. He could picture Aiden's face. He could see Aiden as if he were standing there beside him.

Everything was peaceful and quiet and orderly inside the house. Fridge gently humming. Kids' artwork and a school lunch menu attached to the door with magnets. That made his heart sink. Aidenk kids.

Aiden Junior was nine years old. Charise was six. The wife, Merrill, was thirty-four, fifteen years younger than her husband.

It was her second marriage, his third. They'd seemed very much in love the last time he had seen them together.

Jack moved quickly into the living room. He stopped breathing.

Someone was in the living room!

Jack whirled to the left. He yanked up his pistol and pointed it at the man. Jesus God, it was only a goddamn mirror! He was looking at his own image.

He managed to catch his breath, then continued on his mission, his heart still thundering. He hurried through the living room. It was so familiar, lots of memories seeping into his consciousness. Painful thoughts. He pushed them aside.

He began to climb up plush carpeted stairs, then stopped for a second. For the first time, he had doubts.

There can't be any doubts! Doubt and uncertainty weren't allowed!

Not in this. Not in Jack and Jill.

He remembered the upstairs hallway, knew the house very well. He'd been here before -- as a “friendly.”

The master bedroom was the last door on the right.

There would be weapons in the bedroom. A.357 in the drawer of the night table. An automatic taped under the bed.

He knew. He knew. He knew everything.

If Aiden had already heard him, everything would be over.

The game would end right there. This would be it for Jack and Jill.

Nutcruncher time. Weird thoughts. Too many of them.

He had finally gone to see Pulp Fiction the night before. It hadn't relaxed him, though he'd laughed out loud several times.

Sick story; he was even sicker; America was sickest of all.

Don't think anymore, he warned himself. Just do this. Do it efficiently. Do it now! Do it fast! Get out!

Jack kills American celebrities! Various and sundry bigshots.

That what he does. Be Jack!

But he wasn't really Jack!

He wasn't really Sam Harrison!

Don't think, he commanded himself again as he hurried down the upstairs hallway to the master bedroom.

Be Jack.

Kill.

JACK -- whoever the hell he was -- was three or four steps from the master bedroom when its varnished wood door suddenly opened.

A tall, balding man stepped out into the hall. Very hairy arms and legs. Bare, bony feet; toes splayed. Only half awake. In the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn.

He had on blue plaid boxer shorts, nothing else. A good build, still athletic-looking; just a hint of a spare tire above the boxers' elastic band. Still formidable after all the years of D.C. power lunches.

General Aiden Cornwall!

“You! You son of a bitch!” he whispered as he suddenly saw Jack in the upstairs hallway “I knew it might be you.” Yes, Alden Cornwall knew everything in an instant. He had solved the mystery; a lot of mysteries, actually He understood Jack and Jill.

Where it was going. And why it was going this. Not in Jack and Jill.

He remembered the upstairs hallway, knew the house very well. He'd been here before -- as a “friendly.”

The master bedroom was the last door on the right.

There would be weapons in the bedroom. A.357 in the drawer of the night table. An automatic taped under the bed.

He knew. He knew. He knew everything.

If Aiden had already heard him, everything would be over.

The game would end right there. This would be it for Jack and Jill.

Nutcruncher time. Weird thoughts. Too many of them.

He had finally gone to see Pulp Fiction the night before. It hadn't relaxed him, though he'd laughed out loud several times.

Sick story; he was even sicker; America was sickest of all.

Don't think anymore, he warned himself. Just do this. Do it efficiently. Do it now! Do it fast! Get out!

Jack kills American celebrities! Various and sundry bigshots.

That what he does. Be Jack!

But he wasn't really Jack!

He wasn't really Sam Harrison!

Don't think, he commanded himself again as he hurried down the upstairs hallway to the master bedroom.

Be Jack.

Kill.

JACK -- whoever the hell he was -- was three or four steps from the master bedroom when its varnished wood door suddenly opened.

A tall, balding man stepped out into the hall. Very hairy arms and legs. Bare, bony feet; toes splayed. Only half awake. In the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn.

He had on blue plaid boxer shorts, nothing else. A good build, still athletic-looking; just a hint of a spare tire above the boxers' elastic band. Still formidable after all the years of D.C. power lunches.

General Aiden Cornwall!

“You! You son of a bitch!” he whispered as he suddenly saw Jack in the upstairs hallway “I knew it might be you.” Yes, Alden Cornwall knew everything in an instant. He had solved the mystery; a lot of mysteries, actually He understood Jack and Jill.

Where it was going. And why it was going there: why it had to be this way. Why there could be no turning back.

Jack fired the silenced Beretta twice and the target collapsed.

Jack quickly stepped forward and caught the lifeless body before it could thud loudly against the floor.

He held the body in his arms, lowering it slowly to the carpet.

His friend, whatever that meant now. He stayed down on his knees for a long moment. His heart was exploding.

He hadn't realized how hard this one was going to be until now. Not until this instant.

He looked down into the startled gray blue eyes of the former member of the Joint Chiefs, part of the White House's Jack and Jill emergency task force.

One of the hounds had been taken out. Just like that. Jack and Jill had struck back boldly at the manhunters! They had shown their strength again.

He took a note from his pocket. He left a calling card on Aiden Cornwall's chest.

Jack and Jill came to The Hill To storm your picket fences.

Once safe and sound They easily found The flaw in your Defenses.

A noise in the hall! He looked up. Aiden's boy! “Oh, Jesus God, no,” he whispered out loud. “Oh, God, no.” He felt sick all over. He wanted to run from the house.

The boy had recognized him. How could he not? Young Aiden even knew his children. He knew too much. Dear God, have mercy on me. Please have mercy.

Jack fired the Beretta again.

This was war.

I WAS CALLED to an emergency criss team meeting at the White House at 8:00 A.M. on December 10. I had been causing some trouble over the past few days there. My internal investigation was making waves, ruffling feathers. The big cats on The Hill didn't like being under suspicion -- but all of them were, at least in my book.

Jay Grayer grabbed me the moment I arrived inside the West Wing. Jay's eyes were flat and cold and hard. His grip was strong on my shoulder. “Alex, I need to talk to you for a minute,” he said. “It's important.”

“What's going on now?” I asked the Secret Service agent. He didn't look well. There were dark puffs under both his eyes.

Something else had happened. I could tell.

“Aiden Cornwall was murdered early this morning. It happened at his house out in McLean. It was Jack and Jill. They called us again. Called it in to us like we're mission control.”

He shook his head in sadness and disbelief. “They killed Aiden's nine-year-old son, Alex.”

I found myself rocking back on my heels. The news from Jay Grayer didn't make sense to me; it didn't track with the Jack and Jill style to this point. Goddamn them! They kept changing the rules. They had to be doing it on purpose.

“I want to go there right now,” I told him. “I need to see the house. I need to be out there, not here.”

“I hear you, but wait a minute, Alex,” he said. “Hold on. Let me tell you the rest of what's going on. It gets worse.”

“How could it get any worse?” I asked him. “Jesus, Jay.”

“Trust me, it does. Just listen for a minute.”

Agent Grayer continued to talk in a subdued whisper in the White House hallway as we walked together toward the Emergency Command Center, where the others were gathering. He pulled me aside a few paces from the meeting room. His voice was still an urgent whisper.

“The President is always awakened at quarter to five by the agent in charge. Happens every morning. This morning, the President dressed and went down to the library, where he reads the early papers as well as an executive summary that's prepared for him before he rises.”

“What happened this morning?” I asked Jay. I was beginning to perspire. “What happened, Jay?”

He was very thorough and procedural. “At five o'clock the phone in the library rang. It was Jill on the private line. She was calling to talk with the President. She got through to him, and that just isn't possible.”

My head involuntarily shook back and forth. I agreed with Jay Grayer: this couldn't be happening. The idea, the concept, of the President as a murder target was a hugely disturbing one.

The fact that, so far, we were helpless to stop it was much, much worse.

“I think I understand why the call couldn't happen, but tell me anyway,” I said. I needed to hear it from him.

“Every single call to the White House goes through a private switchboard. Then the call is monitored by a second operator in White House Communications, which is actually part of our Intelligence Division. Every call except this one. The call completely bypassed the control system. Nobody knows how the hell it happened. But it happened.”

“This phone call that couldn't have happened- was it recorded?” I asked Grayer.

“Yes, of course it was. It's already being processed at FBI headquarters and also at Bell Atlantic out in White Oak. Jill used another filtering device to modify her voice, but there might be ways to get around that. We've got half the Baby Bell's high-tech lab on it.”

I shook my head again. I'd heard it, but I couldn't believe any of this. “What did Jill have to say?”

“She began by identifying herself. She said, 'Hi, this is Jill speaking.” I'm sure that got the President's attention better than his usual cup of joe in the morning. Then she said, 'Mr. President, are you ready to die?“”

I NEEDED TO SEE the house. I needed to be inside the place where General Cornwall and his son had been murdered. I needed to feel everything about the killers, their modus operandi.

I got my wish. I reached McLean before nine that morning.

The December day was very gray and overcast. The Cornwall house looked surreal, stark and cold, as I approached and then entered through the front door. It was cold on the inside, too.

Either the Cornwall family was denying that winter was coming or they were saving money on heat.

The double murders had been committed on the second floor.

General Aiden Cornwall and his nine-year-old son still lay on their backs in the upstairs hallway It was a cold, calculated, very professional killing. The grisly murder scene looked like something from a casebook, maybe even one of my notebooks. It was forensic textbook stuff, almost too much so.

FBI technicians and medical examiners were all over the house. There were probably twenty people inside.

It began raining hard just after I arrived at the house. The cars and TV news trucks that came after me all had their headlights on. It was eerie as hell.

Jeanne Sterling found me in the upstairs hallway. For the first time, the CIA inspector general seemed rattled. The severe, constant pressure was getting to all of us. Some people were after the President of the United States, and they were very good at this. They were extremely brutal as well.

“What's your gut reaction, Alex?” asked Jeanne.

“My reaction won't make any of our jobs easier,” I said. "The only truly sustaining pattern I've seen is that Jack and Jill really don't have a pattern. Other than the notes, the poems. There certainly doesn't seem to be any sexual angle to these two murders.

Also, from what I understand, Aiden Cornwall was a conservative, not a liberal like the other victims. That's a shift that might knock down a whole lot of theories about Jack and Jill."

As I was talking to Jeanne Sterling, I had another insight into the notes Jack and Jill had left. The poetry might be telling us something important. The FBI linguistic agents hadn't found anything yet, but I didn't care. Whoever was writing the rhymes, probably Jill, wanted us to know something.... Was there a definite order to what they were doing? The desire to create instead of destroy? The poetry had to mean something. I was almost sure of it.

“How about on your end, Jeanne? Anything?”

Jeanne shook her head and bit her lower lip with her big teeth.

“Not a thing.”

IT HAD BEEN a very long day and it was still going strong and hard. At ten o'clock that night, I arrived at the FBI offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. My mind was running way too fast as I rode the elevator up to twelve. The lights in the building were blazing like tiny campfires above D.C. I figured that Jack and Jill had a lot of people staying up late that night. I was only one of them.

I'd come to the FBI offices to listen to the phone message Jill had sent to the President early that morning. All the important evidence was being made available to me. I was being let inside. I was even being allowed to make waves inside the White House.

I knew all about horrible multiple killers; most of the rest of the team hadn't had that pleasure.

No rules.

I was brought by Security to an audio/electronics office on twelve. An NEC tape machine was waiting for me. A copy of Jill's voice tape was already in. The tape machine was on. Running hot.

“This is a dupe, Dr. Cross, but it's close enough for your listening purposes,” I was told. An FBI techie, long hair and all, went on to inform me they were certain that the voice on the tape had been altered or filtered electronically The FBI experts didn't believe the caller could possibly be identified from the tape. Once again, Jack and Jill had carefully covered their trail.

“I talked to a contact at Bell Labs,” I said. “He told me the same thing. Couple more experts confirm that and I'll believe it.”

The nonconformist-looking FBI technician finally left me alone with the taped phone call. I wanted it that way For a while I just sat in the office and stared out at the Justice Department across Pennsylvania Avenue.

Jill was right there with me.

She had something about herself to reveal, something she needed to tell us. Her deep, dark secret.

The tape had been cued up. Her voice startled me in the silent, lonely office.

Jill spoke.

“Good morning, Mr. President. It's December ten. Exactly five A.M. Please don't hang up on me. This is Jill. Yes, the Jill. I wanted to speak to you, to make this situation very personal for you. Are we okay so far?”

“It's way past 'personal.”“ President Byrnes spoke calmly to her. ”Why are you murdering innocent people? Why do you want to kill me Jill?"

“Oh, there's a very good reason, a fully satisfactory explanation for all our actions. Maybe we just like the power trip of frightening the so-called most powerful people in the world. Maybe we like sending you a message from all the little people you've frightened with your command decisions and almighty mandates from on high. At any rate, no one who's been killed was innocent, Mr. President. They all deserved to die, for one reason or another.”

Then Jill laughed. The sound of the electronically altered voice was almost childlike.

I thought of Aiden Cornwall's young son. Why did a nine-year-old boy deserve to die? At that moment, I hated Jill -- whoever she was, whatever her motives.

President Byrnes didn't back down. The President's voice was measured, calm. "Let me make one thing clear to you: you don't frighten me. Maybe you ought to be afraid, Jill. You and Jack.

We're getting close to you now. There's nowhere on earth you can hide. There isn't one safe spot on the globe. Not anymore."

“We'll certainly keep that in mind. Thanks so much for the warning. Very sporting of you. And you please keep this in mind -- you're a dead man, Mr. President. Your assassination is already a done deal.”

That was the end of the tape. Jill's final words to President Byrnes, spoken so coolly, so brazenly.

Jill the morning deejay. Jill the poet. Who are you Jill?

Your assassination is already a done deal.

I wanted to interview President Byrnes again. I wanted to talk with him right now. I needed him in this office, listening to the sick, threatening tape with me. Maybe the President knew things that he wasn't telling any of us. Someone must.

I played the frightening taped message several more times.

I don't know how long I sat in the FBI office, staring out over the becalmed lights of Washington, D.C. They were somewhere out there. Jack and Jill were out there. Possibly planning an assassination. But maybe not. Maybe that wasn't it at all.

You're a dead man, Mr. President.

Your assassination is already a done deal.

Why were they warning us?

Why warn us about what they planned to do?

IT WAS PAST TEN-THIRTY, but I still had one more important stop I wanted to make. I called Jay Grayer and told him I was on my way to the White House. I wanted to see President Byrnes again. Could he make it happen?

“This can wait until the morning, Alex. It should wait.”

"It shouldn't wait, Jay. I've got a couple of theories that are burning a hole in my brain. I need the President's input. If President Byrnes says that it waits until the morning, then it waits.

But talk to Don Hamerman and whoever else needs to be talked to about it. This is a murder investigation. We're trying to prevent murders. At any rate, I'm on my way over there."

I arrived at the White House, and Don Hamerman was waiting for me. So was John Fahey, the chief counsel, and James Dowd, the attorney general and a personal friend of President Byrnes.

They all looked put out and also very tense. This apparently wasn't how things were done in the Big House.

“What the hell is this all about?” Hamerman confronted me angrily I had been waiting to see what his bite was like. I'd seen worse, actually

“If you want, I'll wait until tomorrow. But my instincts tell me not to,” I told him in a soft but firm voice.

“Tell us what you want to say to him,” James Dowd spoke up.

“Then we'll decide.”

“I'm afraid that it's only for the President to hear. I need to talk with him, alone, just like we did the first time we met.”

Hamerman exploded. “Jesus Christ, you arrogant son of a bitch. We're the ones who let you in here in the first place.”

“Then you're the ones to blame, I guess. I told you that I was here to conduct a murder investigation and that you wouldn't like some of my methods. I told the President the same thing.”

Hamerman stormed away from us, but he returned in a couple of minutes. “He'll see you up on the third floor. This shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes of his time. It won't take more than a few minutes.”

“We'll see what the President has to say about that.”

THE TWO OF US met in a solahum that is attached to the living quarters on the third floor. The room had been a favorite of Reagan's. Outside the windows, the lights of Washington were shining brightly. I felt as if I were living a chapter out of All the President's Men.

“Good evening, Alex. You needed to see me,” the President said, and seemed calm and cheerful enough. Of course, there was no way for me to judge his true feelings. He was dressed casually in khakis and a blue sport shirt.

“I apologize for coming in and causing a lot of upset and inconvenience,” I said to him.

The President raised his hand to stop me from apologizing further. “Alex, you're here because we wanted you to do exactly what you're doing. We didn't think anybody on the inside would have the balls. Now, what's on your mind? How can I help you?”

I relaxed a little bit. How could the President help me? That was a question most of us had always wanted to hear. “I spent the day thinking about this morning's phone call, and also the murders out in McLean. Mr. President, I don't think we have a lot of time left. Jack and Jill are making that pretty clear. They're impatient, very violent; they're taking more and more risks. They also have a psychological need to rub it in our face every time that they can.”

“Are they just flattering their egos, Alex?”

“Possibly, but maybe they want to diminish your power. Mr. President, I wanted to see you alone because what I have to say needs absolute confidentiality. As you know, we've been checking out everyone who works at the White House. The Secret Service has been cooperative. So has Don Hamerman.”

The President smiled. “I'll bet Don has.”

"In his own way, he has. A watchdog is a watchdog, though.

Based on our findings so far, we've placed three members Of the current staff under surveillance by the Secret Service. We would rather watch than dismiss them. They've been added to the seventy-six others currently under surveillance around Washington."

“The Secret Service always has a number of potential threats to the President under surveillance,” Thomas Byrnes said.

"Yes, sir. We're just taking precautions. I don't have particularly high hopes for the three staff members. They're all males.

Somehow I thought we might turn up Jill. But we didn't."

The President's look darkened. “I would have liked to meet Jill and have a private chat with her. I'd have liked that a lot.”

I nodded. Now came the really difficult part of our little talk.

“I have to broach a tough subject, sir. We need to talk about some of the other people around you, the people closest to you.”

Thomas Byrnes sat forward in his chair. I could tell that he didn't like this at all.

“Mr. President, we have reason to suspect that someone with access into the White House, or possibly with power and influence here, might be involved in all of this. Jack and Jill are certainly getting into high places with the greatest of ease The people close to you have to be checked, and checked very closely”

Both of us were suddenly quiet. I could almost visualize Don Hamerman waiting outside, chewing on his silk tie.

I broke the awkward silence.

“I know that we're talking about things you would rather not,” I said.

The President sighed. “That's why you're here. That's why you're here.”

“Thank you,” I told him. “Sir, you have no reason not to trust me on this. As you said yourself I'm an outsider. I have nothing to gain.”

Thomas Byrnes sighed a second time. I sensed that I had reached him, at least for the moment. “I trust many of these people with my life. Don Hamerman is one of them, my bulldog, as you correctly surmised. Whom don't I trust ? I'm not completely comfortable with Sullivan or Thompson at the Joint Chiefs. I'm not even sure about Bowen at the FBI. I've made serious enemies on Wall Street already. Their reach inside Washington is very deep and very powerful. I understand that organized crime is none too pleased with my programs, and they are much more organized now than they've ever been. I'm challenging an old, powerful, very fucked-up system -- and the fucked-up system doesn't like it. The Kennedys did that -- especially Robert Kennedy”

I was having trouble catching my breath all of a sudden. “Who else, Mr. President? I need to know all your enemies.”

"Helene Glass in the Senate is an enemy... Some of the reactionary conservatives in the Senate and House are enemies.... I believe... that Vice President Mahoney is an enemy, or close to one. I made a compromise before the convention to put him on the ticket. Mahoney was supposed to deliver Florida and other parts of the South. He did deliver. I was supposed to deliver certain considerations to patrons of his. I haven't delivered.

I'm screwing with the system, and that isn't done, Alex."

I listened to Thomas Byrnes without moving a muscle. The effect of talking to the President like this was numbing and disturbing. I could see by the look on his face what it cost Thomas Byrnes to admit some of what he had to me.

“We should put surveillance on these people,” I said.

The President shook his head. “No, I can't allow it. Not at this time. I can't do that, Alex.” The President rose from his chair.

“How did your kids like the keepsakes?” he asked me.

I shook my head. I wouldn't be held off like that. “Think about the vice president, and about Senator Glass, too. This is a murder investigation. Please don't protect someone who might be involved. Please, Mr. President, help us... whoever it is.”

“Goodnight, Alex,” the President said in a strong, clear voice.

His eyes were unflinching.

“Goodnight, Mr. President.”

“Keep at it,” he said. Then he turned away from me and walked out of the solarium.

Don Hamerman entered the room. “I'll see you out,” he said stiffly. He was cold -- unfriendly Perhaps I also had an enemy in the White House.

NO WAY, JOSE! Couldn't be. Could not be. This just could not be happening. Welcome to the X-Files meets The Twilight Zone meets the Information Superhighway At five one and two hundred ten pounds, Maryann Maggio was a powerhouse. She thought of herself as a “censor of the obscene and dangerous” on the Prodigy interactive network. Her job with Prodigy was to protect travelers on the Information Superhighway An emergency was developing before her eyes right now. There was an intruder on the network.

This couldn't be happening. She couldn't take her eyes off her IBM desktop screen. “This is the interactive age, all right. Well, people, get ready for it,” she muttered at the screen. “There's a train wreck a-comin'.”

Maryann Maggio had been a censor with IBM-owned Prodigy for nearly six years. By far, the most popular service on Prodigy was the billboards. The billboards were used by members to broadcast personal messages for other members to react to, learn from, plan their vacations, find out about a new restaurant, that sort of thing.

Usually the messages were pretty harmless, covering topical subjects, questions and answers on anything from welfare reform to the ongoing murder trial of the month.

But not the messages that she was staring at right now. This called for Infante the Censor, the protector of young minds, as she sometimes thought of herself. “Big Sister,” according to her bearded, three-hundred-pound husband, Terry the Pirate.

She had been monitoring messages from a particular subscriber in Washington, D.C., since around eleven that night. In the beginning, the quirky messages were borderline judgment calls for her to make. Should she censor or hold back? After all, Prodigy now had to compete with the Internet, which could get pretty damn wild and wacky She wondered if the sender knew this. Cranks sometimes knew the rules. They wanted to push the edge of the envelope.

Sometimes they just seemed to need human contact, even contact with her. The censor of their thoughts and actions. Big Sister is watching.

The first messages had asked other subscribers for their “sincere” point of view on a controversial subject. A child-murder case in Washington, D.C., was described. Then subscribers were asked whether the child murders or the Jack and Jill case deserved more attention from the police and from the press. Which case was more important, morally and ethically?

Maryann Maggio had been forced to pull two of the early messages.

Not because of their content per se, but because of the repeated use of four-letter words, especially the dreaded f word and the s word and one of the c words.

When she pulled the messages, though, it seemed to cause an unbelievable emotional explosion from the subscriber in Washington. First came a long, nasty diatribe about the “obscene and unnecessary censorship plague on Prodigy.” It urged subscribers to switch to CompuServe and other rival on-line services. Of course, CompuServe and America Online had their censors, too.

The messages continued to fly out of Washington faster than the D.C.-New York shuttle. One called for Prodigy to “fire the ass of your absurdly incompetent censor.” Maryann Magio censored it.

Another message used the f word eleven times in two paragraphs.

She censored that fucker, too.

Then the message sender became more than just another foul-mouthed, annoying loose cannon on the service. At 1:17 the subscriber in Washington began to claim responsibility for the two brutal child murders.

The subscriber claimed that he was the murderer, and he would prove it, live on Prodigy.

“Big Sister” pulled the message immediately She also called her supervisor to her cubicle at the Prodigy center in White Plains, New York. Her huge body was shaking all over like jelly by the time her boss arrived, bringing black coffee for both of them. Black coffee? Maryann needed a couple of Little John's “fully loaded” pizzas to get her through this total disaster.

Suddenly, a brand-new message flashed across the screen from the Washington subscriber, who seemed articulate and intelligent enough, but incredibly angry and really, really crazy.

The latest message listed gory details about the murder of a black child, “details only the D.C. police would know,” the subscriber wrote.

“Jesus, Maryann, what a nasty, weird creep,” the Prodigy supervisor said over Maryann Magio's shoulder. “Are all the messages like this one?”

“Pretty much, Joanie. He's toned down his language some, but the violence is really graphic stuff. Vampire creepy Been that way since I clipped his wings.”

The latest message from Washington continued to scroll before their eyes. The description seemed to be of an actual murder of a small black child in Garfield Park. The killer claimed to have used a sawed-off baseball bat reinforced with electrical tape. He claimed to have struck the child twenty-three times, and to have counted every single blow.

“Stop this awful, freakish crap now. Pull the damn plug on him!” the supervisor quickly made her decision.

Then the supervisor made an even more important decision.

She decided the Washington Police Department had to be alerted about the suspicious subscriber. Neither she nor Maryann Maggio knew whether the child murders were real, but they sure sounded that way.

At one-thirty in the morning, the Prodigy supervisor reached a detective at the 1st District in D.C. The supervisor made a note of the detective's rank and also his name in her own log: Detective John Sampson.

I HAD GOTTEN TO BED at a little past one. Nana came and woke me at quarter to five. I heard her slippers scuffing across the bare wood of the bedroom floor. Then she spoke in a low whisper just above my ear. Made me feel as if I were six years old again.

“Alex? Alex? You awake?”

“Mm, hmm. You bet. I am now.”

“Your friend's down in the kitchen. Eating bacon and tomatoes out of my skillet like there's no tomorrow, and he would know, wouldn't he? He still eats it faster than I can cook it.”

I held in a soft, painful moan. My eyes blinked twice and felt badly puffed and swollen each time they opened. My throat was scratchy and sore.

“Sampson's here?” I finally managed to say.

“Yes, and he says he might have a lead on the Truth School killer. Isn't that a good way to start your day?”

She was taunting me. Same as always. It wasn't even five o'clock in the morning and Nana had her rusty shiv in me already.

“I'm up,” I whispered. “I don't look like it, but I'm up.”

Less than twenty minutes later, Sampson and I pulled up in front of a brick townhouse on Seward Square. He admitted that he needed me at the scene. Rakeem Powell and a white detective named Chester Mullins, who wore an ancient porkpie hat, were standing outside their own cars, waiting for us. They looked extremely tense and uncomfortable.

The street was on the moderately upscale side of Seward Square Park, less than a mile and a half from the Sojourner Truth School. This was probably Mullins's home beat.

“It's the white-on-white Colonial motherlode on the corner,” Rakeem said, pointing to a big house about a block away “Man, I like working in these high-rent neighborhoods. You'all smell the roses?”

“That's window-cleaning solution,” I said.

“There goes my career with FTD,” Rakeem Powell laughed, and so did his partner Chester.

“Might not be the Partridge Family living in that nice house up yonder,” Sampson cautioned the two detectives. “Beautiful surroundings, peaceful street and all, maybe a homicidal maniac shitheel waiting for us inside, though. You copy?”

Sampson turned to me. "What are you thinking about, Sugar?

You having your usual nasty thoughts on this? Feeling the gris-gris?"

Sampson had told me what he knew on the short ride over to Seward Square. A subscriber to the Prodigy interactive service, an Army man, Colonel Frank Moore, had been sending messages about the child killings over the service. He appeared to know details about the murders that only the police and the real killer knew. He sounded like our freak.

"I don't like what I'm hearing from you so far, Mister John.

The killings suggest he's in a rage state, and yet he's fairly careful.

Now he's reaching out for help? He's virtually leading us to his doorstep? I don't know if I get that. And I don't like it too much, either. That's what I'm feeling so far, partner."

“I was thinking the same thing.” Sampson nodded and kept staring at the house in question. “At any rate, we're here. Might as well check out what the colonel wanted us to see.”

“Not mutilated bodies,” Rakeem Powell said and frowned deeply “Not at five on a Monday morning. Not more little kids stashed somewhere in that big house.”

“Alex and I will take the back door in,” Sampson said to Rakeem. “You and Popeye Doyle here can cover the front. Watch the garage. If this is the killer's house, you might expect a surprise or two. Everybody wide-awake? Wakee-wakee!”

Rakeem and the white man in the hat nodded. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” Rakeem said with fake enthusiasm.

“We have you covered, Detectives.” Chester Mullins finally said something.

Sampson nodded calmly “Let's do it then. Not daylight yet, maybe he's still in his coffin.”

Five-twenty A.M. and my adrenaline was pumping wildly I had already met all the human monsters I cared to meet in my lifetime. I didn't need any more on-the-job experience in this particular area.

“Am I here to watch your ass?” I asked as Man Mountain and I moved toward the big house perched on the corner.

“You got it, Sugar. I need you on this. You got the magic touch with these psycho-killers,” Sampson said without looking back at me.

“Thanks. I think,” I muttered. There was a real loud noise roaring in my head, as if I'd just taken nitrous oxide at the dentist's.

I really didn't want to meet another psychopath; I didn't want to meet Colonel Franklin Moore.

We cut across a spongy lawn leading to a long, deep porch with an ivy trellis.

I could see a man and woman standing in the kitchen. Two people were already up inside.

“Must be Frank and Mrs. Frank,” Sampson muttered.

The man was eating something as he leaned over the kitchen counter. I could make out a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts pastry, a carton of skim milk, and the morning's Washington Post.

“Very Partridge Family,” I whispered to John. “I really don't like this at all. He's leading us all the way, right to the door.”

“Homicidal maniac,” he said through brilliantly white, gritted teeth. “Don't let the Pop-m-ups fool you. Only psychos eat that shit.”

“Not easily fooled,” I said to Sampson.

“So I hear. Let's do it then, Sugar. Time to be unsung heroes again.”

We both crouched down below the level of the kitchen windows -- no easy task. We couldn't see the man and woman from there, and they couldn't see us.

Sampson grasped the doorknob and slowly turned it.

THE BACK DOOR into the Moore house was unlocked, and Sampson pushed it right in. The two of us exploded into the homey kitchen with its smells of freshly toasted Pop-Tarts and coffee. We were in the Capitol Hill section of Washington. The house and kitchen looked it. So did the Moores. Neither Sampson nor I was fooled by the trappings of normaIcy, though. We'd seen it before, in the homes of other psychos.

“Hands on top of your heads! Both of you. Put your arms up slow and easy,” Sampson yelled at the man and woman we had surprised in the kitchen.

We had our Glocks trained on Colonel Moore. He didn't look like too much of a threat: a short man, thin and balding, middle-aged paunch, eyeglasses. He wore a standard-issue Army uniform, but even that didn't help his image too much.

“We're detectives with the Metro D.C. police,” Sampson identified the two of us. The Moores looked in shock. I couldn't blame them. Sampson and I can be shocking under the wrong circumstances, and these were definitely the wrong circumstances.

“There's been some kind of really bad, really crazy mistake,” Colonel Moore finally said very slowly and carefully.

"I'm Colonel Franklin Moore. This is my wife, Connie Moore.

The address here is 418 Seward Square North.“ He slowly enunciated each word. ”Please lower your weapons, Officers. You're in the wrong place."

“We're at the correct address, sir,” I told the colonel. And you're the crank caller we want to talk to. Either you ''re a crank or you're a killer.

“And we're looking for Colonel Frank Moore,” Sampson filled in. He hadn't lowered his revolver an inch, not a millimeter.

Neither had I.

Colonel Moore maintained his cool pretty well. That concerned me, set my inner alarms off in a loud jangle.

“Well, can you please tell us what this is all about? And please do it quickly Neither of us has ever been arrested. I've never even had a traffic violation,” he said to both Sampson and me, not sure who was in charge.

“Do you subscribe to Prodigy, Colonel?” Sampson asked him.

It sounded a little crazy when it came out, like everything else lately Colonel Moore looked at his wife, then he turned back to us.

“We do subscribe, but we do it for our son, Sumner. Neither of us has much time in our schedules for computer games. I don't understand them much and don't want to.”

“How old is your son?” I asked Colonel Moore.

"What difference does that make? Sumner is thirteen years old. He's in the ninth grade at the Theodore Roosevelt School.

He's an honor student. He's a great kid. What is this all about, Officers? Will you please tell us why you're here?"

“Where is Sumner now?” Sampson said in a very low and threatening voice.

Because maybe young Sumner was listening somewhere near in the house. Maybe the Sojourner Truth School killer was listening to us right now.

“He gets up half an hour to forty-five minutes later than we do. His bus comes at six-thirty Please? What is this about?”

“We need to talk to your son, Colonel Moore,” I said to him.

Keep it real simple for right now.

“You have to do better --” Colonel Moore started to say “No, ;ve don't have to do better,” Sampson interrupted him.

“We need to see your son right now. We're here on a homicide investigation, Colonel. Two small children have already been killed. Your son may be involved with the murders. We need to see your son.”

“Oh, dear God, Frank,” Mrs. Moore spoke up for the first time. Connie, I remembered her name. "This can't be happening.

Sumner couldn't have done anything."

Colonel Moore seemed even more confused than when we first burst in, but we had gotten his full attention. “I'll show you up to Sumner's room. Could you please holster your weapons, at least?”

“I'm afraid we can't do that,” I told him. The look in his eyes was inching closer to panic. I didn't even look at Mrs. Moore anymore.

“Please take us to the boy's bedroom now,” Sampson repeated.

“We need to go up there quietly. This is for Sumner's own protection. You understand what I'm saying?”

Colonel Moore nodded slowly His face was a sad, blank stare.

“Frank?” Mrs. Moore pleaded. She was very pale.

The three of us went upstairs. We proceeded in single file.

I went first, then Colonel Moore, followed by Sampson. I still hadn't ruled out Franklin Moore as a suspect, as a potential madman, as the killer.

“Which room is your son's?” Sampson asked in a whisper.

His voice barely made a sound. Last of the Masai warriors. On a capital-murder case in Washington, D.C.

“It's the second door on the left. promise you, Sumner hasn't done anything. He's thirteen years old. He's first in his class.”

“Is there a lock on the bedroom door?” I asked.

“No... I don't think so... there might be a hook. I'm not sure. He's a good boy, Detective.”

Sampson and I positioned ourselves on either side on the closed bedroom door. We understood that a murderer might be waiting inside. Their good boy might be a child killer. Times two.

Colonel Moore and his wife might have no idea about their son, and what he was truly all about.

Thirteen years old. I was still slightly stunned by that. Could a thirteen-year-old have committed the two vicious child murders?

That might explain the amateurness at the crime scenes.

But the rage, the relentless violence? The hatred?

He's a good boy, Detective.

There was no lock, no hook, on the boy's door. Here we go. Here we go. Sampson and I burst into the bedroom, our guns drawn.

The room was a regular teenager's hideout, only with more computer and audio equipment than most I'd seen. A gray cadet dress uniform hung on the open closet door. Someone had slashed it to shreds!

Sumner Moore wasn't in his bedroom. He wasn't catching an extra half-hour of sleep that morning.

The room was empty.

There was a typewritten note on the crumpled bedsheets, where it couldn't be missed.

The note simply said Nobody is gone.

“What is this?” Colonel Moore muttered when he read it.

“What is going on? What is going on? Can somebody please explain? What's happening here?”

I thought that I got it, that I understood the boy's note. Sumner Moore was Nobody -- that was how he felt. And now, Nobody was gone.

An article of clothing lying beside the note was the second part of the message to whoever came to his room first. He had left behind Shanelle Green's missing blouse. The tiny electric-blue blouse was covered with blood.

A thirteen-year-old boy was the Truth School killer. He was in a state of total rage. And he was on the loose somewhere in Washington.

Nobody was gone.

THE SOJOURNER TRUTH SCHOOL killer traipsed along M Street reading the Washington Post from cover to cover, looking to see if he was famous yet. He had been panhandling all morning and had made about ten bucks. Life be good!

He had the newspaper spread wide open, and he wasn't much looking where he was going, so he bumped into various assholes on his way. The Post was full of stories about goddamn Jack and Jill, but nothing about him. Not a paragraph, not a single word, about what he'd done. What a frigging joke newspapers were.

They just lied their asses off, but everybody was supposed to believe them, right?

Suddenly, he was feeling so bad, so confused, that he wanted to just lie down on the sidewalk and cry. He shouldn't have killed those little kids, and he probably wouldn't have if he'd stayed on his medication. But the Depakote made him feel dopey, and he hated it as if it were strychnine.

So now his life was completely ruined. He was a goner. His whole life was over before it had really begun.

He was on the mean streets, and thinking about living out here permanently. Nobody is here. And nobody can stop Nobody.

He had come to visit the Sojourner Truth School again. Alex Cross's son went there and he was pissed as hell at Cross. The detective didn't think much of him, did he? He hadn't even come to the Teddy Roosevelt School with Sampson. Cross had dissed him again and again.

It was approaching the noon recess at the Truth School and he decided to stroll by, maybe to stand up close to the fenced yard where they had found Shanelie Green. Where he had brought the body. Maybe it was time to tempt the fates. See if there was a God in heaven. Whatever.

Rock-and-roll music was pounding nonstop in his head now.

Nine Inch Nails, Green Day, Oasis. He heard “Black Hole Sun” and “Like Suicide” from Soundgarden. Then “Chump” and “Basket Case” from Green Day's Dookie.

He caught himself, pulled himself back from the outer edge.

Man, he had gone ya-ya for a couple of minutes there. He had completely zoned out. How long had he been out of it? he wondered.

This was getting bad now. Or was it getting very good? Maybe he ought to take just a wee bit of the old Depakote. See if it brought him back anywhere near our solar system.

Suddenly, he spotted the black bitch Amazon woman coming toward him. It was already too late to move out of the way of the cyclone.

He recognized her right away She was the high-and-mighty principal from the Sojourner Truth School. She had a bead on him, had him in her sights. Man, she should have been wearing a o FVR T-shirt to play that kind of game. You put the bead on me -- then I'll put the bead on you, lady. You don't want my bead on you. Trust me on that, partner.

She was yelling, raising her voice anyway “Where do you go to school? Why aren't you there now? You can't stand around here.” She called loudly as she kept walking straight toward him.

FUCK YOU, BLACK BITCH. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO?

YOU... TALKIN'... TO... ME?

"Do you hear me, mister? You deaf or something? This is a drug-free area, so move on. Now. There's absolutely no loitering near this school. That means you, in the fatigue jacket! Move on.

Go on, get out of here."

Just fuck you, all right? I'll move on when I'm good and ready.

She came right up to him, and she was big. A lot bigger than he was, anyway

“Move it or lose it. I won't take any crap from you. None at all. Now get out of here. You heard me.”

Well, hell. He moved on without giving her the satisfaction of word one. When he got up the block, he saw all the schoolkids being let outside into the yard with the high fence that didn't mean squat in terms of protection. Can't keep me out, he thought.

He looked for Cross's little boy, searched the school yard with his eyes. Found him, too. No sweat. Tall for his age. Beautiful, right? Kute as hell. Damon was his name-o, name-o.

The school principal was still out in the playground -- staring up the street at him, bad-eyeing him. Mrs. Johnson was her name-o.

Well, she was a dead woman now. She was already ancient history. Just like old Sojourner Truth -- the former slave former abolitionist. They all are the killer thought as he finally moved on. He had better things to do than loitering, wasting his precious time. He was a big star now. He was important. He was somebody Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

“You believe that,” he said to nobody in particular, just the generic voices crackling inside his head, “then you must be crazier than I am. I aren't happy There aren't no joy”

As he turned the corner, he saw a police car coming up the street toward the school. It was time to get the hell out of there, but he would be back.

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON I gathered up my files and all my notes on Jack and Jill. I headed to Langley, Virginia, again.

No music in the car that morning. Just the steady whhrrr of my tires on the roadway Jeanne Sterling had asked to see what I had come up with so far. She'd called halfa dozen times. She promised to reciprocate this time. You show me yours, I'll show you mine.

Okay? Why not? It made a lot of sense.

An Agency assistant sporting a military-style crew cut, a woman in her twenties, escorted me into a conference room on the seventh floor. The room was filled with bright light and was a far cry from my cube in the White House basement. I felt like a mouse out of its hole. Speaking of the White House, I hadn't heard from the Secret Service about any plan to investigate possible enemies of the President in high places. I would stir that pot again when I got back to D.C.

“On a clear day you used to be able to see the Washington Monument,” Jeanne Sterling said as she came striding in behind me. "Not anymore. The air quality in Fairfax County is abysmal.

What's your reaction to the files on our killer elite, so far? Shock?

Surprise? Boredom? What do you think, Alex?"

I was starting to get used to Jeanne's rapid-fire style of speaking.

I could definitely see her as a law school professor. “My first reaction is that we need weeks to analyze the possibility that one of these people might be a psychotic killer. Or that one of them might be Jack,” I told her.

“I agree with you on that,” she nodded. “But just suppose we had to compress our search into about twenty-four fun-filled hours, which is about what we have to work with. Now then, are there any prime suspects in your mind? You have something, Alex. What is it?”

I held up three fingers. I had three somethings so far.

She smiled broadly Both of us did. You had to learn to laugh at the madness or it could bring you so far down, you'd never make it back up again.

“Okay All right. That's what I like to hear. Let me guess,” she said, and went ahead. “Jeffrey Daly, Howard Kamens, Kevin Hawkins.”

“Well, that's interesting,” I said. “That might tell us something at least. Maybe we better start with the one name that's on both of our shortlists. Tell me about Kevin Hawkins.”

JEANNE STERLING spent about twenty minutes briefing me on Kevin Hawkins. “You'll be gratified to hear that we have Hawkins under surveillance already,” she said as we rode a swift, smooth elevator down to the basement garage, where our cars were parked.

“See, you don't need my help, after all,” I said. I was buoyed by the prospect of any kind of progress on the case. I was actually feeling positive for the first time in several days.

“Oh, but we do, Alex. We haven't brought him in for an interview, because we don't have anything concrete on him. Just nasty, nasty suspicions. That and a need to catch somebody. Let's not forget about that. Now you're suspicious, too.”

“That's all I have at this point,” I reminded her. “Suspicions.”

“Sometimes that's enough, and you know it. Sometimes it has to be.”

We arrived at the small private garage underneath the CIA complex at Langley. The space was filled mostly with family vehicles like Taurus station wagons, but there were a few high-testosterone sports cars as well. Mustangs, Bimmers, Vipers.

The cars matched up fairly well with the personnel I had seen upstairs.

“i guess we should take both our cars,”Jeanne suggested, and it made sense to me. "I'll drive back here when we're through.

You can go on into D.C. Hawkins is staying with his sister in Silver Spring. He's at the house now. It's about half an hour on the beltway, if that."

“You're going to take him in now?” I asked her. It sounded like it to me.

“I think we should, don't you? Just to have a little chat, you know.”

I went to my car. She walked to her station wagon. “This man we're going to see, he's a professional killer,” I called to her across the garage floor.

She called back, her voice echoing against concrete and steel.

“From what I gather, he's one of our very best. Isn't that a fun thought?”

“Does he have an alibi for any of the Jack and Jill murder dates?”

“Not that we know of. We'll have to ask him more about it -- in detail.”

We got into our respective cars and started up the engines.

I was beginning to notice that the CIA inspector general wasn't a bureaucrat; she certainly wasn't afraid to get her hands dirT Mine, either. We were going to meet another “ghost.”

Was he Jack? Could it be that easy? Stranger things had happened.

It took the full thirty minutes to get over to Hawkins's sister's house in Silver Spring, Maryland. The houses there were somewhat overpriced, but it was still considered a middle-class area.

Not my middle class. Somebody else's.

Jeanne pulled her Volvo wagon up alongside a black Lincoln parked three-quarters of a block from the sister's house. She powered down the passenger-side window and talked to two agents inside the parked car. One of her surveillance teams, I guessed.

Either that or she was asking directions to the assassin's hideout, which struck me as humorous. One of the few laughs I'd had recently.

Suddenly, I saw a man come out of the sister's Cape Cod-style house.

I recognized Kevin Hawkins from his file pictures. No doubt about it.

He threw a quick glance down the street, and he must have seen us. He started to run. Then he hopped on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle parked in the driveway.

I shouted, “Jeanne,” out my open window and gunned my engine at the same time.

I began to chase... Jack?

THE FIRST THING Kevin Hawkins did on the motorcycle was to cut sharply sideways over the sliver of frost-covered lawn separating two split-level ranch houses. He raced past a few more houses, one of them with an aboveground pool covered by a baby-blue tarp for the winter.

I aimed my old Porsche along the same inland route that Hawkins was taking. Fortunately, the past few days had been cold, and the ground was mostly solid. I wondered if anybody from the houses had spotted the motorcycle and car crazily zigzagging through their backyards.

The motorcycle took a sharp right onto the development road past the last row of houses. I followed close behind. My car Was bouncing high. Then it scraped bottom loudly against the high curb. It thudded hard onto the road pavement, and my head struck the rooftop.

As we approached an intersecting street, the Volvo station wagon and the Lincoln joined the race. A few neighborhood kids who were playing flag football in spite of the miserable weather stopped to gawk wide-eyed at the real-life police chase roaring up the suburban street.

I had my Glock out and the window rolled down. I wasn't going to fire unless he did. Kevin Hawkins wasn't wanted for any specific crime yet. No warrants had been served. Why was he running? He sure was acting guilty about something.

Hawkins leaned the Harley into a steep curve as he downshifted into fourth. I remembered another life and time spent on a fast motorcycle. I recalled its amazing maneuverability.

The rawness of the speed. The feeling when your skin begins to tighten against your skull. I rememberedJezzie Flanagan, and her motorcycle.

Hawkins's bike made a deep, guttural roar as it climbed the hilly road like a ground rocket.

I tried to keep up, and was doing a pretty decent job. Amazingly, so was the Volvo wagon and the sedan. The chase scene was complete madness, though -- suburbia suddenly racing out of control.

Was Jack up ahead?

Was Hawkins Jack?

I watched Kevin Hawkins stretch himself flat over the handlebars of the bike. He knew how to ride. What else did the trained killer know how to do?

He was accelerating into fifth, approaching ninety or so on a narrow suburban road repeatedly marked for thirty-five.

Then up ahead -- traffic!

The bane of our existence was suddenly the most glorious and welcome sight in the world to me.

A traffic jam!

Several cars and vans were already backed up in the direction we were coming from.

A bright orange mini-school bus was stopped in the opposite lane. It was discharging a thin line of children, as it did probably every day about this time.

Hawkins hadn't slowed the cycle much, though. Suddenly, he was riding the double line in the road. He hadn't slowed the cycle at all.

I realized what he was going to do.

He was going to split the stopped traffic, and keep on going.

I started to brake and cursed loudly. I knew what I had to do.

I swerved off the road again, traveling cross-country over more lawns. A woman in a black pea jacket and jeans screamed at me from her porch and waved a snow shovel.

I headed toward where the main road looped down ahead to meet the lane I had been stuck in traffic in only a few seconds ago.

Jeanne Sterling followed in her station wagon. So did the Lincoln sedan. Madness and chaos helter-skelter in Silver Spring.

Was this Jack up ahead? Were we about to nab the celebrity stalker and killer?

I had high hopes. We were so close to him. Less than a hundred yards.

I kept my eyes pinned on the bouncing, speeding motorcycle.

Suddenly, it went down!

The bike slid on one side, sending up a sheet of bright orange and white sparks against the roadway black. A few kids were still walking in a line between the bus and the stopped traffic.

Then Hawkins went down!

He had gone down to avoid hitting the children.

He had swerved to avoid hitting the kids!

Hawkins was down on the road.

Could this be Jack up ahead?

If not, who in the name of God was he?

I was out of the car, holding my Glock, racing like a madman toward the bizarre accident scene. I was slip-sliding on the ice and snow, but I wouldn't let it slow me down.

Jeanne Sterling and her two agents were out of their cars as well, but they weren't doing as well in the slush. I was losing my cover.

Kevin Hawkins managed to pull himself up from the sprawling heap. He looked back. He saw us coming. Guns everywhere.

He had a gun out, but he didn't fire. He was only a few feet away from the school bus and the children.

He left the kids alone, though. Instead, he ran to a black Camaro convertible at the head of the line of stopped cars.

What the hell was he up to now?

I could see him yelling into the driver-side window of the stopped sports car. Then blam, he fired directly into the open window.

Hawkins yanked open the car door, and a body fell out.

Jesus Christ, he'd shot the driver dead! Just like that.

I had seen it, but I couldn't believe it.

The contract killer took off in the Camaro. He'd killed someone for his car. But he'd nearly killed himself to avoid hitting a row of innocent children.

No rules... or rather, make up your own.

I stopped running and stood helplessly in the middle of the street in Silver Spring. Had we just been that close to catching Jack ?

Had it almost been over?

NANA MAMA was still up when I got home about eleven-thirty that night. Sampson was with her.

Adrenaline fired through my body the moment I saw them waiting for me. The two of them looked even worse than I felt after a long bear of a day.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong at our house. I could tell it for sure. Sampson and Nana didn't have casual visits after eleven o'clock at night.

“What's going on? What happened?” I asked as I came in through the kitchen door. My stomach was dropping, plunging.

Nana and Sampson sat at the small dining table. They were talking, conspiring over something.

“What is it?” I asked again. “What the hell is going on?”

“Someone's been calling on the telephone all night tonight, Alex. Then they just hang up when I answer the phone,” my grandmother told me as I sat at the kitchen table beside her and Sampson.

“Why didn't you call me right away?” I asked, firmly but gently “You have my beeper number. That's what it's for, Nana.”

“I called John,” Nana answered the question. “I knew you were busy protecting the President and his family.”

I ignored her usual rancor. This wasn't the time for that, or for a tiff. “Did the caller ever say anything?” I asked. “Did you actually speak to anyone?”

“No. There were twelve calls between eight-thirty and ten or so. None since then. I could hear someone breathing on the line, Alex. I almost blew my whistle on them.” Nana keeps a silver referee's whistle near the phone. It's her own solution to obscene calls. This time I almost wished she had blown the damn whistle.

“I'm going to bed now,” she said and sighed softly, almost inaudibly.

For once, she actually looked her age. “Now that you're both here.”

She strained as she pushed herself up out of the creaking kitchen chair. She went over to Sampson first. She bent just a little and kissed him on the cheek.

“'Night, Nana,” he whispered. “There's nothing to worry about. We'll take care of everything, bad as it seems right now.”

“John, John,” she gently scolded him. “There's a great deal of worry about, and we both know it. Don't we, now?”

She came and kissed me. “Goodnight, Alex. I'm glad you're home now. This murderer stalking our neighborhood worries me so. It's very bad. Very bad. Please trust my feelings on this one.”

I held her frail body for a few seconds, and I could feel the anger building inside. I held her tightly and thought about how terrible this was, what she was intimating, this evil incarnate following me home. No one in his right mind goes after a cop's family I didn't believe the killer was in his right mind, though.

“Goodnight, Nana. Thank you for being here for us,” I whispered against her cheek, smelled her lilac talc. “I hear what you're saying. I agree with you.”

When she had left the room, Sampson shook his head. Then he finally smiled. “Tough as ever, man. She's really something else. I love her, though. I love your grandma.”

“I do, too. Most of the time.”

I was staring up at the ceiling light, trying to focus on something that I could comprehend -- like electricity, lamps, moldings.

No one can really understand a homicidal madman. They are like visitors from other planets -- literally I was almost speechless, for once in my life. I felt violated, incredibly angry, and also afraid for my family Maybe these phone calls were nothing, but I didn't know that for sure.

I got a couple of beers from the fridge, popped them open for the two of us. I needed to talk to Sampson, anyway There hadn't been a free moment all day long.

“She's afraid for the kids' sake. That gets the fur up on her neck. Claws out,” Sampson said, then took a long sip of beer.

“Sharp claws, man.” I finally managed a half-smile in spite of the incredibly bad circumstances and my weariness.

We both listened to the silence of the old house on Fifth Street for a long moment. It was finally punctuated by the familiar dull clanging of the heating pipes. We took pulls on our bottles of ale.

No invasive phone calls came now. Maybe Nana's whistle wasn't such a bad idea.

“How are you and the all-stars doing with the search for the Moore kid?” I asked Sampson. “Anything today? Anything new from the rest of our group? I know our surveillance is breaking down. Not enough manpower.”

Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders, moved in his seat.

His eyes turned hard and dark. "We found traces of makeup in his room. Maybe he used makeup to play the part of an old man.

We will find him, Alex. You think he's the one who called here tonight?"

I spread my hands, then I nodded my head. “That would make sense. He definitely wants special attention, wants to be seen as important, John. Maybe he feels Jack and Jill is taking attention away from him, stealing the spotlight from his show. Maybe he knows I'm working Jack and Jill, and he's angry with me.”

“We'll just have to ask the young cadet,” Sampson said. He smiled a truly malevolent smile, one of his best, or worst, ever.

“Sure wish I was popular like you, Sugar. No freaks call me late at night. Write me mash notes at my house. Nothing like that.”

“They wouldn't dare,” I said. “Nobody's that crazy, not even the Truth School killer.”

We both laughed, a little too loudly Laughter is usually the best and only defense in a really tough murder investigation.

Maybe Jack and Jill had called me at home. Or Kevin Hawkins had called here. Or maybe even Gary Soneji, who was still out there somewhere, waiting to settle his old score with me.

"Technician will be at the house first thing in the morning.

Put a crackerjack hookup on your phone. We'll put a detective in here, too. Until we find the boy wonder anyway. I talked to Rakeem Powell. He's glad to do it."

I nodded. “That's good. Thanks for coming by and being here for Nana.”

Things had taken a turn for the worse. They were threatening me in my own house now, threatening my family Someone was.

The freaks were right at my doorstep.

I couldn't get to sleep after Sampson left that night.

I didn't feel like playing the piano. No music in me for the moment.

I didn't dare call Christine Johnson. I went up and looked in on the kids. Rosie the cat followed me, yawning and stretching.

I watched them, much as Jannie had watched me sleep the other morning. I was afraid for them.

I finally dozed off about three in the morning. There were no more phone calls, thank God.

I slept on the porch with the Glock in my lap. Home, sweet home.

I HEARD THE KIDS squawking and squealing first thing the next morning. They were laughing loudly, and it both raised my spirits and mildly depressed me.

I immediately remembered the situation we were in: the monsters were at our doorstep. They knew where we lived. There were no rules now. Nobody, not even my own family, was safe.

I thought about the Moore boy for a moment or two as I lay on the old sofa on the porch. Strangely, nothing in his past history fit in with the two murders. It just didn't track. I considered the monstrous idea of a thirteen-year-old boy committing purely existential murders. I had a lot of material stored in my head on the subject. I vaguely recalled Andr Gide's Lafcadiok Adventures from grad school. The twisted main character had pushed a stranger from a train just to prove that he was alive.

I glanced at the portable alarm clock beside my head. It was already ten past seven. I could smell Nana's strong coffee wafting through the house. I refused to let myself get down about the lack of progress. There was a saying I kept around for just such occasions. Failure isn't falling down... it's staying down.

I got up. I went to my room, showered, put on some fresh clothes, rumbled back downstairs. I wasn't staying down.

I found my two favorite Martians spiraling around the kitchen, playing some kind of tag game at seven in the morning.

I opened my mouth and did my imitation of the silent scream from Edvard Munch's painting The Shriek.

Jannie laughed out loud. Damon mimed a silent scream of his own. They were glad to see me. We were still best pals, best of friends.

Somebody had called our house last night.

Sumner Moore?

Kevin Hawkins ?

“Morning, Nana,” I said as I poured a cup of steaming coffee from her pot. The best to you each morning and all that. I sipped the coffee and it tasted even more wonderful than it smelled. The woman can cook. She can also talk, think, illuminate, irritate.

“Morning, Alex,” she said, as if nothing bad had happened the night before. Tough as nails. She didn't want to upset the kids, to alarm them in any way. Neither didI.

“Somebody will be by to look at our phone.” I told her what Sampson and I had discussed the night before. “Somebody will be around for a few days, too. A detective. Probably it will be Rakeem Powell. You know Rakeem.”

Nana didn't like that news one bit. "Of course I know Rakeem.

I taught Rakeem in school for heaven's sake. Rakeem has no business here, though. This is our home, Alex. This is so terrible. I just don't think I can stand it... that it's happening here."

“What's wrong with our telephone?” Jannie wanted to know.

“It works,” I told my little girl.

THE TWO MURDER CASES were beginning to feel like a single, relentless nightmare. I couldn't seem to catch my breath anymore. My stomach was in knots and apparently would stay that way for the duration of the investigation. The situation was Kafkaesque, and it was wearing down the entire Metro police force. No one could remember anything like it.

I had decided to keep Damon home with Nana and Detective Rakeem Powell for a few days. Just to be on the safe side. Hopefully, we'd find thirteen-year-old Sumner Moore soon, and half the horror story would be ended.

I continued to suspect either that Sumner Moore wanted to be caught or that he would be soon. The carelessness in both murders indicated it. I hoped that he wouldn't kill another child before we found him.

I considered moving Nana and the kids to one of my aunts', but held back. Rakeem Powell would stay with them at the house.

That seemed enough chaos and disruption to force into their lives. For the moment, anyway.

Besides, I was almost certain Nana wouldn't have moved to one of her sisters' without a huge battle and casualties. Fifth Street was her home. She would rather fight than switch. Occasionally, she had.

I drove to the White House very early in the morning. I sat in a basement office with a mug of coffee and a two-foot-thick stack of classified papers to read and ponder. These were literally hundreds of CIA reports and internal memos on Kevin Hawkins and the other CIA “ghosts.”

I met with Don Hamerman; the attorney general, James Dowd; and Jay Erayer at a little past nine. We used an ornate conference room near the Oval Office in the West Wing. I recalled that the White House had originally been built to intimidate visitors, especially foreign dignitaries. It still had that effect, especially under the current circumstances. The “American mansion” was huge, and every room seemed formal and imposing.

Hamerman was surprisingly subdued at the meeting. “You made quite an impression on the President,” he said. “You made your point with him, too.”

“What happens now?” I asked. "What actions do we take?

Obviously, I'd like to help."

“We've initiated some extremely sensitive investigations,” Hamerman said. “The FBI will be handling them.” Hamerman looked around the room. It seemed to me that he was reaffirming his power, his clout.

“Is that it, what you wanted to tell me?” I asked him after a few seconds of silence.

“That's it for now. You got it started. That's something. It's a really big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” I said. “It's a fucking murder investigation in the White House!” I got up and went back to my office. I had work to do. I kept reminding myself that I was part of the “team.”

Hamerman peeked his head into the office about eleventhirty. His eyes were wider and wilder than usual. I thought that maybe he'd changed his mind about the latest investigation -- or had his mind changed for him.

He didn't look himself.

“The President wants to see us immediately.”

PRESIDENT BYRNES personally greeted each of us on the crisis team as we entered the Oval Office, which was indeed oval.

“Thank you for coming. Hello, Jay, Ann, Jeanne, Alex. I know how busy you are, and the tremendous pressure you're all working under,” he said as we walked in and began to take seats.

The crisis team had been assembled, but President Byrnes clearly dominated the room and the unscheduled meeting. He was dressed in a dark blue chief executive's business suit. His sandy-brown hair was freshly barbered, and I couldn't help wondering if it had just been cut that morning, and if it had, where did he get the time?

What had happened now? Had Jack and Jill contacted the White House again?

I glanced across the room at Jeanne Sterling. She shrugged her shoulders and widened her eyes. She didn't know what was up, either. No one seemed to know what the President had on his mind, not even Hamerman.

When we were seated, President Byrnes spoke. He stood directly in front of a pair of flags, army and air force. He seemed in control of his emotions, which was quite a feat.

“Harry Truman used to say,” he began, “'if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.” I think I've experienced the precise feelings that inspired his wit. I'm almost sure that I have."

The President was an unusually engaging speaker. I already knew as much from his address at his convention and other televised talks -- his version of FDR's fireside chats. He was clearly able to bring his oratory talents to a much smaller room and audience, even a tough, cynical crowd like the one before him.

“What a royal pain in the butt this job can be. Whoever coined the phrase 'If drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve' had the right idea. Believe me on that one.”

The President smiled. He had an ability to make anything he said sound personal. I wondered if he planned it. How much of this was a first-rate acting job?

The President's intense blue eyes circled the room, stopping for a moment on each face. He seemed to be judging us, but more important, communicating with us individually. "I've been thinking a great deal about this current, unfortunate situation.

Sally and I have talked about it upstairs, late into the night, several nights in a row. I've been thinking about Jack and Jill too much, in fact. For the past few days, this miserable three-ring circus has been the focus, and a major distraction to the executive branch of our government. It's already disrupted cabinet meetings and played havoc with everyone's schedule. This situation simply can't be allowed to continue. It's bad for the country, for our people, for everybody's mental health, including my own and Sally's. It makes us look weak and unstable to the rest of the world. A threat by a couple of kooks can't be permitted to disrupt the government of the United States. We can't allow that to happen.

“As a consequence, I've made a tough decision, which ultimately has to be mine to make. I'm sharing it with you this morning, because the decision will affect all of you as well as Sally and me.”

President Byrnes let his eyes quickly roam around the room again. I didn't know where this was going yet, but the process was fascinating to me. The President led us a step, then he checked to make sure we were still with him. He was clearly issuing an order, but he made it seem as if he were still seeking some consensus in the room.

“We simply have to return to business-as-usual at the White House. We have to do that. The United States can't be held hostage to real or imagined dangers or threats. That's the decision I'm making, and it goes into effect at the end of today We have to move on, to move ahead with our programs.”

As the President told us his decision, there was uneasy movement in the room. Ann Roper groaned out loud. Don Ham-erman dropped his head down low, close to his knees. I kept my eyes pinned on the President.

"I fully understand that this makes your jobs more difficult, to say the very least. How in hell can you protect me if I won't cooperate, won't follow your recommendations? Well, I can't cooperate anymore. Not if it means sending a message to the world that a couple of psychopaths can completely alter our government.

Which is exactly what is happening. It's happened, folks.

“Starting tomorrow, I'm back on my regular schedule. There will be no further debate on that subject. Sorry, Don.” He looked at his chief of staff as he officially rejected his advice.

“I've also decided to make my scheduled visit to New York City on Tuesday Sorry again, Don, Jay I wish the best to all of us on our appointed tasks. You do your jobs, please. I'll try to do mine. We will have absolutely no regrets, no matter what happens from this point on. Is that understood?”

“Understood, sir.” Everyone in the room nodded yes. Every eye was intensely focused on the President, mine included.

President Byrnes had been both impassioned and impressive.

Absolutely no regrets, I repeated the phrase inside my head.

I was sure I'd remember it for the rest of my life, no matter what happened, no matter what Jack and Jill had planned from here on.

Thomas Byrnes had just put his life on the line, really on the line.

The President had just put his life in our hands.

“By the way, Don,” President Byrnes said to Hamerman as the meeting was starting to break up. “Have somebody run out and get me a goddamn dog. I think I need a friend.”

We all laughed, even if we didn't quite feel up to it.

THAT NIGHT it snowed about an inch in Washington. The temperature dropped way down into the teens. The Truth School killer woke up feeling scared. Feeling very alone. Feeling trapped.

Feeling quite sad, actually.

No happy, happy. No joy, joy.

He was in a cold, greasy sweat that grossed him out completely In a dream that he remembered now, he had been murdering people, then burying them under a fieldstone fireplace at his grandparents' country home in Leesburg. He'd been having that same dream for years, ever since he could remember, ever since he was a kid.

But was it a dream, or had I committed the grisly murders?

he wondered as he opened his eyes. He tried to focus on the surroundings. Where the hell am I?

Then he remembered where he was, where he had come to sleep for the night. What a mindblower! What a cool idea he'd had.

The song, his song, blared inside his head:

I'm a loser, baby So why don't you kill me?

This hiding place was cool as shit. Or maybe he was just being too stupid and careless. Cool as shit? Or dumb and dumber?

You be the judge.

He was in his own house, up on the third floor.

He wrapped his mind around the idea that he was “safe and sound” for now. Man, he loved the power of that thought.

He was in total control. He was mission control. He could be as big and important as Jack and Jill. Hell, he could be bigger and better than those trippy assholes. He knew that he could. He could stomp Jack and Jill's asses.

He felt around on the floor for his trusty backpack. Where the hell is his stuff?... Okay. There it is. Everything is cool. He fumbled inside -- located his flashlight. He flicked the ON switch.

“Let there be light,” he whispered. “Wah-lah!”

Awhh, too bad sports fans -- he was definitely in the attic of his home. This wasn't a dream. He was the Truth School killer, after all. He shined the bright light down on his wristwatch. It was a twelfth-birthday present. It was the kind of sophisticated watch that pilots wore. Wow, he was so damn impressed! Maybe he could study to be a jet pilot after this was all behind him. Learn to fly an F-16.

It was 4:00 A.a. on the jet pilot's watch! Must be 4:00 ,.M., then.

“The hour of the werewolf,” he whispered softly It was time to come down out of the attic. It was time to continue to make his mark in the world. Something cool and amazing had to happen now.

Perfect murders.

Had to, had to, had to.

HE LET the bulky foldaway stairs drop down very slowly to the second floor of the house. His house. If his foster parents happened to get up for a pee right now- BIG PROBLEMS FOR HIM.

BIG SURPRISE FOR THEM, THOUGH.

MAJOR SHITSTORM FOR EVERYBODY CON CERNED.

He was having a little trouble with his breathing. None of this was easy now. He needed to set the heavy, unwieldy stairs down quietly on the second floor, but there was a little thud right at the end.

“Damn you. Loser,” he whispered.

He still couldn't exactly catch his breath. His body was covered with a thick coat of sweat, the kind horses break on a morning workout. He had seen that phenomenon on his grandparents' farm. Never forgot it: sweat that almost turned into this frothy cream, right before your eyes.

“Pusillanimous,” he whispered, mocking his own cowardice.

“Chickenshit bastard. Punk of the month. Loser, man.” His theme song again.

He tried to let some of the icy panic and nervousness pass.

He took long, slow, deep breaths as he paused at the top of the folding stairs. This was so freaky It was helter fucking skelter, in real life, in real time.

He finally began to climb down the wobbly wooden stairway, on wobbly wooden legs that felt like stilts. He was being as careful and quiet as he could be.

He felt a little better as he got to the bottom. Terra firma.

He walked on his tiptoes down the upstairs hallway to the door of the master bedroom. He opened the door and was immediately struck with a blast of really cold air.

His foster father kept the window open, even in December, even when it fucking snowed. He would. The arctic cold probably kept his silver-blond crew cut short. Saved him on haircuts.

What a superjerk-off the guy was.

“Do you screw her in the cold dark?” he whispered under his breath. That sounded about right, too.

He walked up real close to their king-size bed. Real close. He stood at their altar of love, their sacred throne.

How many times had he imagined a moment like this? This very moment.

How many other kids had imagined this same scene a thousand thousand times? But then done nothing about it. Losers!

The world was full of them.

He was on the verge of one of his worst rages, a real bad one. The hair on the back of his neck was standing at attention.

TEN-SHUN. It felt like it, anyway.

He could see red everywhere in the bedroom. kike this misting red. It was almost as if he were viewing the room through a nightscope.

He... was... just.. about... to... go.. off... wasn't.. he?

He could feel himself... exploding... into.. a... billion...

pieces.

Suddenly, he screamed at the top of his voice. “Wake up and smell the fucking Folgerk coffee!”

He was sobbing now, too. For what reason, he didn't know. He couldn't remember crying like this since he was a real little kid, real little.

His chest hurt as if he'd been punched hard. Or hit with an eighteen-inch ballbat. He realized that he was starting to wimp out. Mister Softee was coming back. He felt like Holden Caulfield. Repentant. Always triple-thinking every goddamn move both before and after he made it.

“POW,” he screamed at the top of his voice.

“POW,” he screamed the word again.

"?OW.

"?OW.

"POW.

"POW.

"POW.

“POW ”POW.

"POW.

"POW.

“POW.”

And with every bloodcurdling yell, he pulled the trigger of the Smith & Wesson. He put another 9mm bullet into the two sleeping figures. Twelve shots, if he was counting correctly, and he was counting everything very correctly Twelve shots, just like Jose and Kitty Menendez got.

The Roosevelt military education finally came in handy, he couldn't help thinking. His teachers had been right, after all.

Colonel Wilson at the school would have been proud of the marksmanship- but most of all, the firm resolve, the very simple and clear plan, the extraordinary courage he had shown tonight.

His foster parents were annihilated, completely vanquished, almost disintegrated by all the firepower he'd brought to the task.

He felt nothing -- except maybe pride in what he had done, in his fine workmanship.

Nobody was here. Nobody did this, man.

He wrote it in their blood.

Then he ran outside to play in the snow. He got blood all over the yard, all over everything. He could, you know. He could do anything he wanted to now. There was no one to stop Nobody ANOTHER MURDERED CHILD has been discovered.

A male. Less than an hour ago.

John Sampson got the news about seven o'clock in the evening.

He couldn't believe it. Could not, would not, accept what he had just been told. Friday the thirteenth. Was the date deliberate?

Another child murdered in Garfield Park. At least, the body was left there. He wanted Sumner Moore bad, and he wanted him now.

Sampson parked on Sixth Street and began the short walk into the desolate and dreary park. This is getting worse, he thought as he walked toward the red and yellow emergency lights flashing brightly up ahead.

“Detective Sampson. Let me through,” he said as he pushed his way inside a circle of police uniforms.

One of the uniforms was helding a gray-and-white yapping mutt on a leash. It was a weird touch at a weird scene. Sampson addressed the patrolman. “What's with the dog? Whose dog?”

“Dog uncovered the victim's body Owner let it loose for a run after she got home from work. Somebody covered up the dead kid with tree branches. Not much else. Like he wanted somebody to find it.”

Sampson nodded at what he'd heard so far. Then he moved on, stepped closer to the body The victim was clearly older than either Vernon Wheatley or Shanelle Green. Sumner Moore had graduated from murdering very small children. The creepy little ghoul was on a full rampage now.

A police photographer was taking pictures of the body, the camera's harsh flashes dramatic against the blanket of snow covering the park.

The boy's mouth and nose were wrapped with silver duct tape.

Sampson took a deep breath before he stooped down low next to the medical examiner, a woman he knew named Esther Lee.

“How long you think he's been dead?” Sampson asked the M.E.

“Hard to say Maybe thirty-six hours. Decomposition is slowed a lot in this cold weather. I'll know more after the autopsy The boy took a brutal beating. Lead pipe, wrench, something nasty and heavy like that. He tried to fight the killer off. You can see defensive bruises on both hands, on his arms. I feel so bad for this boy”

“I know, Esther. Me, too.”

What John Sampson could see of the boy's neck was discolored and badly bloated. Tiny black bugs crawled along the hairline. A thin line of maggots spilled from a split in the scalp above the right ear.

Sampson sucked it up, grimaced, and forced himself to move around to the other side of the boy's body Nobody knew it, not even Alex, but this was the part of homicide that he just couldn't handle. DOAs. Bodies in decomposition.

“You won't like it,” Esther Lee told him before he looked. “I'm warning you.”

“I know I won't,” he muttered. He blew warmth on his hands, but it didn't help much.

He could see the boy's face now. He could see it- but he couldn't believe it. And he certainly didn't like it. Esther kee was right about that.

“Jesus Christ,” he said out loud. “Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Make this terrible thing stop.”

Sampson stood up straight. He was six nine again, only it wasn't tall enough, wasn't big enough. He couldn't believe what he had just seen -- the boy face.

This killing was too much even for him, and he had seen so much in D.C. during the past few years.

The murdered boy was Sumner Moore.

NO RULES.