Lukas continued. "In terms of standard investigation I've got agents running license plates from every car parked around City Hall this morning. We're also running the tags from cars around Dupont Circle. We're checking out the drop area by the Beltway and all the hotels, apartments, trailers and houses around it."

"You don't sound optimistic," Kennedy grumbled.

"I'm not optimistic. There're no witnesses. No reliable ones anyway. A case like this, we need witnesses."

Kennedy examined the note once again. It seemed odd that a madman, a killer, should have such nice handwriting. To Lukas he said, "So. I guess the question is-should I pay?"

Now Lukas looked at Cage. He answered, "We feel that unless you pay the ransom or an informer comes forward with solid information about the Digger's whereabouts we won't be able to stop him by four P.M. We just don't have enough leads." She added, "I'm not recommending you pay. This's just our assessment of what'll happen if you don't."

"Twenty million," he mused.

Without a knock the office door opened and a tall man of about sixty, wearing a gray suit, stepped inside.

Oh, great, Kennedy thought. More cooks in the kitchen.

U.S. Representative Paul Lanier shook the mayor's hand and then introduced himself to the FBI agents. He ignored Wendell Jefferies.

"Paul," Kennedy told Lukas, "is head of the District Governance Committee."

Though the District of Columbia had some autonomy Congress had recently taken over the power of the purse and doled out money to the city like a parent giving a reckless child an allowance. Especially since the recent Board of Education scandal Lanier had been to Kennedy what an auditor is to a set of accounting books.

Lanier missed the disparaging tone in Kennedy's voice-though Lukas seemed not to-and the congressman asked, "Can you give me a heads-up on the situation?"

Lukas ran through her assessment once more. Lanier remained standing, all three buttons of his Brooks Brothers suit snugly secured.

"Why here?" Lanier asked. "Why Washington?"

Kennedy laughed to himself. The prick's even stolen my rhetorical questions.

Lukas answered, "We don't know."

Kennedy continued, "You really think he'd do it again?"

"Yes."

The congressman asked, "Jerry, you're not seriously thinking of paying."

"I'm considering all options."

Lanier was looking dubious. "Well, aren't you concerned with what it'll look like?"

"No, I don't care how it looks," Kennedy snapped.

But the congressman continued in his politician's perfect baritone. "It's going to send the wrong message. Kowtowing to terrorists."

Kennedy glanced at Lukas, who said, "It is something to think about. The floodgates theory. You give in to one extortionist there'll be others."

"But nobody knows about this, do they?" Kennedy nodded to the note.

"Sure, they do," Cage said. "And more'll know pretty soon. You can't keep something like this under wraps for long. Notes like this have wings. You bet they do."

"Wings," Kennedy repeated, disliking the expression intensely and all the happier that Lukas was running the show. He asked her, "What can you do to find him if we do pay?"

Lukas again responded. "Our tech people'll rig the drop bag-with a transmitter. Twenty million will weigh a couple hundred pounds," she explained. "It's not something you can just hide under the seat of a car. We'll try to track the perp to his hideout. If we're lucky, get both him and the shooter-this Digger."

"'Lucky,'" Kennedy said skeptically. She was a pretty woman, he thought, though the mayor-who'd been married to his wife for thirty-seven years and had never once considered cheating on her-knew that beauty is mostly expression of eye and mouth and posture, not God-given structure. And Margaret Lukas's face hadn't once softened since she'd walked into his office. No smile, no sympathy. Her voice was flinty now as she said, "We can't give you percentages."

"No. Of course you can't."

"Twenty million," mused Lanier, the controller of the purse strings.

Kennedy rose, pushed his chair back and stepped to a window. Looked out on the brown lawn and trees speckled with dead leaves. The winter in Northern Virginia had been eerily warm for the past several weeks. Tonight, the forecasters were predicting, would be the first big snow of the year but at the moment the air was warm and humid and the scent of decomposing vegetation wafted into the room. It was unsettling. Across the street was a park, in the middle of which was a big, dark, modern statue; it reminded Kennedy of a liver.

He glanced at Wendell Jefferies, who took the cue and joined him. The aide wore aftershave; he must have had twenty different scents. The mayor whispered, "So, Wendy, the pressure's on, huh?"

The aide, never known for his restraint, responded, "You got the ball, boss. Drop it and you and me both, we're gone. And more than that too."

And more than that too…

And Kennedy had thought things couldn't get any worse after the Board of Education scandal.

"And so far," Kennedy said, "no leads. Nothing."

So far twenty-three people dead.

So far all they knew was that this psychopath was going to try to kill more people at 4 o'clock and more after that and more after that.

Outside the window the eerily warm air stirred. Five lacy brown leaves twisted to the ground.

He turned back to his desk. Looked at the brass clock. The time was 10:25.

Lanier said, "I say we don't pay. I mean, it seems to me that when he finds out the FBI's involved he might just balk and head for the hills."

Agent Lukas offered, "Bet he had an idea the Bureau'd be involved before he started this."

Kennedy picked up on her sarcasm. Lanier, again, remained oblivious.

The congressman continued, speaking to her, "I didn't think you were in favor of paying."

"I'm not."

"But you also think he'll keep shooting if we don't pay."

"Yes," she answered.

"Well…" Lanier lifted his hands. "Isn't that inconsistent? You don't think we should pay… but he's going to keep killing."

"That's right."

"That doesn't give us much guidance."

Lukas said, "He's a man who's prepared to kill as many people as he needs to, just to make money. You can't negotiate with somebody like that."

"Will paying make your job harder?" Kennedy asked. "Harder to catch him?"

"No," she said. A moment later: "So," she asked, "are you going to pay or not?"

The desk lamp shone on the note. To Kennedy it seemed that the piece of paper glowed like white fire.

"No, we're not paying," Lanier said. "We're taking a hard line. We're standing tough on terrorism. We're-"

"I'm paying," said Kennedy.

"You sure?" Lukas asked him, not seeming to care one way or the other.

"I'm sure. Do your best to catch them. But the city's going to pay."

"Hold on," the congressman said, "not so fast."

"It's not fast at all," Kennedy snapped. "I've been considering it since I got this goddamn thing." He gestured at the fiery note.

"Jerry," Lanier began, laughing sourly, "you don't have the right to make that decision."

"Actually he does," said Wendell Jefferies, who could append the letters J.D. and LL.M. after his name.

"Congress has jurisdiction," Lanier said petulantly.

Cage said to Lanier, "No, it doesn't. It's exclusively the District's call. I asked the attorney general on my way over here."

"But we've got control of the money," Lanier snapped. "And I'm not going to authorize it."

Kennedy glanced at Wendy Jefferies, who thought for a moment. "Twenty million? We can draw on our line of credit for discretionary spending." He laughed. "But it'll have to come out of the Board of Education reserve. They're the only account that's majorly liquid."