"Why?" he asked.

"I want a family."

"Have children with Richard. You're young."

But she wouldn't want that, Parker knew. As much as she'd loved being pregnant-she was never more beautiful-she had fallen apart at the work involved with infants. You can hardly have children when, emotionally, you're one yourself.

"You're completely unfit," Parker said.

"My, you have learned how to take the gloves off, haven't you? Well, maybe I was unfit. But that's in the past."

No, that's in your nature.

"I'll fight it, Joan," he said matter-of-factly. "You know that."

She snapped, "I'll be by tomorrow at ten. And I'm bringing a social worker."

"What?" He was dumbfounded.

"Just to talk to the kids."

"Joan… On a holiday?" Parker couldn't imagine that a social worker would agree to this but then he realized that Richard must have pulled some strings.

"If you're as good a father as you think you are you won't have any trouble with them talking to her."

"I don't have any trouble. I'm thinking of them. Just wait until next week. How do you think they'll feel having some stranger cross-examining them on the holiday? It's ridiculous. They want to see you"

"Parker," she said, exasperated, "she's a professional. She's not going to cross-examine them. Look, I have to run. The kennel's closing soon because of the holiday. Those poor puppies… Oh, come on, Parker. It's not the end of the world."

But, yes, he thought, that's exactly what it is.

He began to slam the door but halfway through the gesture he stopped, knowing that the sound would upset the Whos.

He closed the door with a firm click. Turned the dead bolt, put the chain on, as if trying to lock this cyclone of bad news out. Folding the papers without looking at them, he walked into the den and stuffed them into the desk, left a message for his lawyer. He paced for a few minutes then climbed the stairs and stuck his head in Robby's room. The children were giggling and tossing Micro Machines at each other.

"No bombardiering on New Year's Eve," Parker said.

"So it's okay to bombardier tomorrow?" Robby asked.

"Very funny, young man."

"He started it!" Stephie sniped, then returned to her book. Little House on the Prairie.

"Who wants to help me in the study?" he called.

"I do," Robby cried.

Together, father and son disappeared down the stairs into his basement office. A few minutes later Parker heard the electronic music again as Stephie exchanged literature for computer science and sent intrepid Mario on his quest once more.

Mayor Gerald Kennedy-a Democrat, yes, but not that strain of Kennedys-looked at the piece of white paper on his desk.

Mayor Kennedy -

The end is night. The Digger is loose and their is no way to stop him.

Attached to the sheet was an FBI memo, which was headed, "Annexed document is a copy. METSHOOT case, 12/31."

METSHOOT, Kennedy thought. Metro shooting. The Bureau loved their labels, he recalled. Sitting hunched like a bear over the ornate desk in his Georgian office in the very un-Georgian Washington, D.C., City Hall, Kennedy read the note once more. Looked up at the two people seated across from him. A trim, attractive blond woman and a tall, lean gray-haired man. Balding Kennedy often thought of people in terms of their hair.

"You're sure he's the one behind the shooting?"

"What he said about the bullets," the woman said, "them being painted? That checked out. We're sure the note's from the perp."

Kennedy, a bulky man comfortable with his bulk, pushed the note around on his desk with his huge hands.

The door opened and a young black man in a double-breasted Italian suit and oval glasses walked inside. Kennedy gestured him to the desk.

"This is Wendell Jefferies," the mayor said. "My chief aide-de-camp,"

The woman agent nodded. "Margaret Lukas."

The other agent gave what seemed to Kennedy to be a shrug. "Cage." They all shook hands.

"They're FBI," Kennedy added.

Jefferies's nod said, Obviously.

Kennedy pushed the copy of the note toward the aide.

Jefferies adjusted his designer glasses and looked at the note. "Shit. He's gonna do it again?"

"So it seems," the woman agent said.

Kennedy studied the agents. Cage was from Ninth Street -FBI headquarters-and Lukas was the acting special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office. Her boss was out of town so she was the person running the Metro shooting case. Cage was older and seemed well connected in the Bureau; Lukas was younger and appeared more cynical and energetic. Jerry Kennedy had been mayor of the District of Columbia for three years now and he had kept the city afloat not on experience and connections but on cynicism and energy. He was glad Lukas was the one in charge.

"Prick can't even spell," Jefferies muttered, lowering his sleek face to read the note again. His eyes were terrible, a malady shared by his siblings. A good portion of the young mans salary went to his mother and her two other sons and two daughters in Southeast D.C. A good deed that Jefferies never mentioned-he kept it as quiet as the fact that his father had been killed on East Third Street while buying heroin.

For Kennedy, young Wendell Jefferies represented the best heart of the District of Columbia.

"Leads?" the aide asked.

Lukas said, "Nothing. We've got VICAP involved, District police, Behavioral down in Quantico, and Fairfax, Prince William and Montgomery County police. But we don't have anything solid."

"Jesus," Jefferies said, checking his watch.

Kennedy looked at the brass clock on his desk. It was just after 10 A.M.

"Twelve hundred hours… noon," he mused, wondering why the extortionist used twenty-four-hour European, or military, time. "We have two hours."

Jefferies said, "You'll have to make a statement, Jerry. Soon."

"I know." Kennedy stood.

Why did this have to happen now? Why here?

He glanced at Jefferies-the man was young but, Kennedy knew, had a promising political career ahead of him. He was savvy and very quick; Jefferies's handsome face twisted into a sour expression and Kennedy understood that he was thinking exactly the same thing that the mayor was: Why now?

Kennedy glanced at a memo about the special reviewing stand at the New Year's Eve fireworks tonight on the Mall. He and Claire, his wife, would be sitting with Representative Paul Lanier and the other key congressional zookeepers of the District.

Or they would have been if this hadn't happened.

Why now?

Why my city?

He asked them, "What're you doing to catch him?"

It was Lukas who answered and she answered immediately. "We're checking CIs-confidential informants-and Bureau handlers who've got any contact with domestic or foreign terrorist cells. So far, nothing. And my assessment is this isn't a terrorist profile. It smells like a by-the-book profit crime. Then I've got agents comparing past extortion schemes to try to find a pattern. We're looking at any other threats the District or District employees have received in the past two years. No parallels so far."

"The mayor's gotten some threats, you know," Jefferies said. "About the Moss situation."

"What's that?" Cage asked.

Lukas answered, "The Board of Education whistle-blower. The guy I've been baby-sitting."

"Oh, him." Cage shrugged.

To Jefferies, Agent Lukas said, "I know about the threats. I've looked into them. But I don't think there's a connection. They were just your routine anonymous threats from pay phones. No money was involved and there were no other demands."

Your routine anonymous threats, Kennedy thought cynically.

Except that they don't sound so routine if your wife picks up the phone at 3:00 in the morning and hears, "Don't push the Moss investigation. Or you'll be as fucking dead as he's gonna be."