"It's hard to have anything, isn't it? Rare to get it, hard to keep it. This is a damn slippery planet."

"Slick as hell."

"We'll be back in Sugarloaf, won't we?"

"Yes we will."

"Don't get in a hurry and hang it out too far. You won't do that?"

"No."

"Are you going back early?"

He had talked to Crawford half an hour on the phone.

"A little before lunch. If you're going to Marathon at all, there's something we need to tend to in the morning. Willy can fish."

"He had to ask you about the other."

"I know, I don't blame him."

"Damn that reporter, what's his name?"

"Lounds. Freddy Lounds."

"I think maybe you hate him. And I wish I hadn't brought it up. Let's go to bed and I'll rub your back."

Resentment raised a minute blister in Graham. He had justified himself to an eleven-year-old. The kid said it was okay that he had been in the rubber Ramada. Now she was going to rub his back. Let's go to bed – it's okay with Willy.

When you feel strain, keep your mouth shut if you can.

"If you want to think awhile, I'll let you alone," she said.

He didn't want to think. He definitely did not. "You rub my back and I'll rub your front," he said.

"Go to it, Buster."

Winds aloft carried the thin rain out over the bay and by nine A.M. the ground steamed. The far targets on the sheriff's department range seemed to flinch in the wavy air.

The rangemaster watched through his binoculars until he was sure the man and woman at the far end of the firing line were observing the safety rules.

The Justice Department credentials the man showed when he asked to use the range said "Investigator." That could be anything. The rangemaster did not approve of anyone other than a qualified instructor teaching pistolcraft.

Still, he had to admit the fed knew what he was doing.

They were only using a.22-caliber revolver but he was teaching the woman combat shooting from the Weaver stance, left foot slightly forward, a good two-handed grip on the revolver with isometric tension in the arms. She was firing at the silhouette target seven yards in front of her. Again and again she brought the weapon up from the outside pocket of her shoulderbag. It went on until the rangemaster was bored with it.

A change in the sound brought the rangemaster's glasses up again. They had the earmuffs on now and she was working with a short, chunky revolver. The rangemaster recognized the pop of the light target loads.

He could see the pistol extended in her hands and it interested him. He strolled along the firing line and stood a few yards behind them.

He wanted to examine the pistol, but this was not a good time to interrupt. He got a good look at it as she shucked out the empties and popped in five from a speedloader.

Odd arm for a fed. It was a Bulldog.44 Special, short and ugly with its startling big bore. It had been extensively modified by Mag Na Port. The barrel was vented near the muzzle to help keep the muzzle down on recoil, the hammer was bobbed and it had a good set of fat grips. He suspected it was throated for the speedloader. One hell of a mean pistol when it was loaded with what the fed had waiting. He wondered how the woman would stand up to it.

The ammunition on the stand beside them was an interesting progression. First there was a box of lightly loaded wadcutters. Then came regular service hardball, and last was something the range-master had read much about but had rarely seen. A row of Glaser Safety Slugs. The tips looked like pencil erasers. Behind each tip was a copper jacket containing number-twelve shot suspended in liquid Teflon.

The light projectile was designed to fly at tremendous velocity, smash into the target and release the shot. In meat the results were devastating. The rangemaster even recalled the figures. Ninety Glasers had been fired at men so far. All ninety were instant one-shot stops. In eighty-nine of the cases immediate death resulted. One man survived, surprising the doctors. The Glaser round had a safety advantage, too – no ricochets, and it would not go through a wall and kill someone in the next room.

The man was very gentle with her and encouraging, but he seemed sad about something.

The woman had worked up to the full service loads now and the rangemaster was pleased to see she handled the recoil very well, both eyes open and no flinch. True, it took her maybe four seconds to get the first one off, coming up from the bag, but three were in the X ring. Not bad for a beginner. She had some talent.

He had been back in the tower for some time when he heard the hellish racket of the Glasers going off.

She was pumping all five. It was not standard federal practice. The rangemaster wondered what in God's name they saw in the silhouette that it would take five Glasers to kill.

Graham came to the tower to turn in the earmuffs, leaving his pupil sitting on a bench, head down, her elbows on her knees.

The rangemaster thought he should be pleased with her, and told him so. She had come a long way in one day. Graham thanked him absently. His expression puzzled the rangemaster. He looked like a man who had witnessed an irrevocable loss.

The caller, "Mr. Pilgrim," had said to Sarah that he might call again on the following afternoon. At FBI headquarters certain arrangements were made to receive the call.

Who was Mr. Pilgrim? Not Lecter – Crawford had made sure of that. Was Mr. Pilgrim the Tooth Fairy? Maybe so, Crawford thought.

The desks and telephones from Crawford's office had been moved overnight to a larger room across the hall.

Graham stood in the open doorway of a soundproof booth. Behind him in the booth was Crawford's telephone. Sarah had cleaned it with Windex. With the voiceprint spectrograph, tape recorders, and stress evaluator taking up most of her desk and another table beside it, and Beverly Katz sitting in her chair, Sarah needed something to do.

The big clock on the wall showed ten minutes before noon.

Dr. Alan Bloom and Crawford stood with Graham. They had adopted a sidelines stance, hands in their pockets.

A technician seated across from Beverly Katz drummed his fingers on the desk until a frown from Crawford stopped him.

Crawford's desk was cluttered with two new telephones, an open line to the Bell System's electronic switching center (ESS) and a hot line to the FBI communications room.

"How much time do you need for a trace?" Dr. Bloom asked.

"With the new switching it's a lot quicker than most people think," Crawford said. "Maybe a minute if it comes through all-electronic switching. More if it's from someplace where they have to swarm the frame."

Crawford raised his voice to the room. "If he calls at all, it'll be short, so let's play him perfect. Want to go over the drill, Will?"

"Sure. When we get to the point where I talk, I want to ask you a couple of things, Doctor."

Bloom had arrived after the others. He was scheduled to speak to the behavioral-science section at Quantico later in the day. Bloom could smell cordite on Graham's clothes.

"Okay," Graham said. "The phone rings. The circuit's completed immediately and the trace starts at ESS, but the tone generator continues the ringing noise so he doesn't know we've picked up. That gives us about twenty seconds on him." He pointed to the technician. "Tone generator to 'off' at the end of the fourth ring, got it?"

The technician nodded. "End of the fourth ring."

"Now, Beverly picks up the phone. Her voice is different from the one he heard yesterday. No recognition in the voice. Beverly sounds bored. He asks for me. Bev says, 'I'll have to page him, may I put you on hold?' Ready with that, Bev?" Graham thought it would be better not to rehearse the lines. They might sound flat by rote.