"A little what?"

"Okay… I was rude. Nothing personal."

"Bullshit. You're worried because you've got the murder of the year on your hands. The Lord of the Feebs will be here any minute, and you caught the rap. You're supposed to show you're on top of this thing and explain what happened here, yet for some reason no ME or forensics people have arrived, the first guys on the scene are standing around with their thumbs up their butts, Ben's worried about covering his ass, and it suddenly struck you that you're all alone with your ass on the line. So I say something bright and enlightening, and you decide I might be helpful. Also, you'd like somebody to help catch the crap when it flies. Thanks. Get me a ride out of here."

Her jaw muscles tensed a bit, but she kept her cool. Actually she smiled. "You're more alert and intuitive than I gave you credit for, Drummond."

"Are you going to get me a ride?"

"But you're not leaving."

"Wrong. Says so in the federal statutes-CIA handles assholes outside, FBI handles assholes inside. It's yours."

I spun around and was starting to walk away when she warned, "You better hear about the note before you take another step."

I stopped, but did not turn around. Actually, I knew I should not have stopped. But knowing what you should do and doing what you should do are two very different things. I could feel her eyes on my back.

She mentioned, "It was found on that oriental chest in the foyer. The initial entry crew immediately transported it to our lab for analysis."

Okay, now I had a millisecond to decide-did I really want to hear about the note? This was Washington, the one place where in fact what you don't know doesn't hurt you. But having seen all those bodies, I was curious. Boy, was I in a fix.

Then it was too late as she explained, "To paraphrase the words read to me over the phone, this slaughter was a warning. 'You can't stop us. There will be others, and the President will be history in the next two days.'"

"History?"

"Their word, not mine."

That awkward phraseology aside, it occurred to me that my options had just dwindled. The assassins could be foreign terrorists, and that would definitely involve the Agency, so I should stay or I'd be in hot water. Or they could be homegrown idiots and staying would implicate the Agency in a domestic legal matter, and also put my ass in the sling. The only clear fact was that the people who found a way to bypass the security in this house, murdered six people, and beelined out of here were legitimately bad hombres, skilled, bold, and smart. In fact, Mrs. President might think about calling a few term life agencies to see who offered the most affordable rates for a few days of additional coverage on Mr. President.

Margold was thinking along the same lines and said, "This thing might be beyond domestic. You're as involved as I am."

Not so. At least, not yet.

She added, "The Director could get here any second. He's expecting a full and comprehensive briefing. Trust me, he's not a man you want to disappoint with half-assed results."

"All right. I'm here in an advisory capacity." I reconsidered and said, "Actually, I'm not here. The instant your boss shows up, I'm out of here."

She nodded, but did not reply.

In retrospect, I should have heeded the old warning: Never test the depth of water with both feet. But it was already too late.

We stepped back inside for another visual and mental sweep of the surroundings. First, however, I took a moment for attitude adjustment. I was annoyed at being back inside this house, annoyed at being blindsided by my boss, and most of all, I was annoyed at Ms. Margold. Had Miss Tightass not kept the motive and victim profiles from me in the first place, we wouldn't have to go through this again. For the record, I've seen death, destruction, and corpses in my Army and legal career, and I'm not queasy. Yet it is something I've never grown used to, and a rerun is in some strange way worse than a first run.

But you have to focus at a murder site, and I noted first the absence of a peephole on the front door. There were lines of small side windows to each side of the door, and I suggested, "Possibly she never saw his face."

"What? Oh… Lacy… You mean Elwood's face?"

"Yeah. Look here. If he stood close enough when he rang the doorbell, even if she peeked out the side window, she could only observe the side of his body"

Margold walked over and peered out the window to confirm the accuracy of this observation.

I obviously did not need to explain why this point was relevant, even important. The driver, Larry Elwood, was at that moment our only identified suspect. But there were no living witnesses and Elwood's face wasn't on the videotape in the basement, which left open the possibility that the gentleman we observed on film stumbling up the walkway was an impostor. The fact that June Lacy couldn't recognize Elwood's face at the door would leave his status ambiguous. Solving crimes is about inclusion and exclusion; Larry Elwood could still go either way and we were back to roughly five billion UnSubs-FBI-speak for Unknown Subject and normal-speak for haven't got a clue. I mentioned, "Make sure your forensics people take fingerprints from the doorbell buzzer."

"I've already made a mental note of that."

"Incidentally, where's the car? And where's Elwood?"

"Missing. We've confirmed that Elwood left the motor pool at five-thirty, headed this way. An APB's out on him and the car."

"It's a big city."

"No, Drummond, it's a small city. New York and L.A. are big cities."

Ironically enough, I get a little pissed when sarcasm is used on me, and I replied, "Great. Then you'll have no trouble finding them."

"Actually… the car's equipped with a specially coded satellite navigation system that also works as a locator."

"Easier still."

"But it's apparently been disabled."

"Isn't that a surprise."

"Yeah, actually." She looked at me and said, “Only a handful of people are aware of the existence of that locator system. A very small handful."

"Not as small as you thought."

I took a knee and regarded June Lacy's body again. Her left hand covered the bullet hole, and the exit wound was hidden beneath her, so it was impossible to confirm whether the same caliber bullet did her as the others.

My eyes shifted to her face. June Lacy wasn't beautiful or even pretty, really. Her face was too roundish and her features were flat and ordinary, though she was striking, I thought even captivating, in a way that caught you by surprise. It took me a moment before I put a finger on it. She had a noisy innocence, a serenity of spirit, a sort of pleasant simpleness, not of the mind but of the soul, where it counts. Hers was that kind of happy girlish face found peeking out from the third row of a church choir, or at curbside during the Memorial Day parade, hand over her heart, having not the slightest doubt that this is the greatest country on earth, that the world is populated by knights and dragons; she stands with the knights, and is just so damned proud to be part of it. I'm not that type. Perhaps I once was, but no longer. Actually, for a moment I felt guilty and even a little soiled in her presence. More than that, I felt terribly sad and, in some strange way, deeply angry.

Ben had mentioned she was a Minnesotan, and indeed, Special Agent June Lacy emerged from a Nordic gene pool; her hair was silvery blond, her skin fair and unblemished, and her eyes were a sort of Baltic Sea pale blue. She was a slumber party habitue, never the prom queen though always in the court, the girl everybody entrusted with their most embarrassing secrets, though she wouldn't be among the elite Secret Service were she not also bright, ambitious, and adventurous.