Bailey nodded. "Especially in small towns, where your business tends to be everybody else's."

"Were the shielded ones church members?"

She pursed her lips. "Don't think so, but I didn't exactly have a list to go by. Just from appearances no. They didn't have that scrubbed and placid look about them."

"So the shielded ones tend to not be church members. And seemingly aren't affected, or aren't much affected, by whatever it is affecting everybody else."

"That could be why," Bailey offered. "Samuel can't get to them, can't influence them, not by psychic means and not by more conventional cultish means. But, if my casual walk through town is any indication, you're looking at only a small percentage of the town being__immune to Samuel."

"Which," Bishop said grimly, "argues an enormous amount of sheer energy expended. That has to be taking a toll."

"Worth the price, maybe, to him. It allows him to operate without worry. No stories in the newspaper or other media attention. Nobody questioning his people. Nobody bothering them." She paused, then added, "On the other hand, it might not be so deliberate. Those sensors we have in place now are showing an awful lot of random energy we can't really explain, and not just inside the Compound. If he's expending enough of it, leaving enough residue in the very air, it could be acting as a sort of dampening field over the whole area, including outside the Compound. Affecting anyone who's susceptible to electrical or magnetic energy."

"Affecting us," Bishop said. "In unpredictable ways."

She tilted her head slightly as she studied him. "Adding Tessa's experience to Sarah's, plus other reports, means this isn't exactly new information."

Answering the unspoken question, Bishop said slowly, "I've always believed an absolute psychic would be born. Eventually. Someday. A psychic born able to control his or her abilities completely."

"A good thing. Unless he or she is on the other team."

"That possibility dawned as we discovered, over time, more and more psychics on the other team," he admitted.

"Okay. Do you believe Samuel is an absolute psychic?"

"I'm afraid he might be."

Bailey waited a moment, then probed, "And?"

"And everything I know about profiling, all my experience, tells me that he might have been made, not born. Shaped by events in his life. Created."

"And?" Bailey repeated.

"We're born with limitations, Bailey. All of us. Our abilities evolve and change, but they have ultimate limits, even if it takes us years or a lifetime to find them. Something created, on the other hand, something forged in the crucible of experiences may not have those kinds of limits. And the evolution of something like that could be consciously controlled, accelerated by will alone. Samuel could be growing stronger, literally, day by day."

"Which is why you said this couldn't go on for weeks or months."

He nodded. "Yes. We have to stop him."

"Even without evidence?"

"Even," Bishop said, "without evidence. And without evidence, we can't put him in a cage. We can't deal with him in a courtroom. Without evidence, we have to destroy him."

Tessa was frowning. "Sarah was a Haven operative, not a fed. And the FBI investigation into the church wasn't authorized?"

"Not by the Director. He's not a big fan of the SCU. Or of Bishop. Things have been a little tense since his appointment."

"Why not a fan? From everything I've been told, the SCU has been incredibly successful in their investigations, especially in comparison to some other FBI cases."

"And it could be that. Bishop bends over backward to avoid publicizing our successes. And if we don't get credit"

"the FBI doesn't get credit. But does the Director really want to explain that the successes are due to a unit mostly made up of psychic agents?"

"I doubt it. Very much. So you could see how he'd have mixed emotions about us. Whatever other tensions are there, I don't know. But I know he's been watching the unit and Bishop very closely."

A bit dryly, Tessa said, "I doubt that going behind the Director's back to put agents inside a church would win any brownie points."

"I never said SCU agents were inside the church," Hollis said immediately. "Look, Tessa, any suspected cult leader is automatically on the FBI's watch list, and the SCU's. Any suspected cult leader with even the possibility of psychic ability and we'd be nuts not to get eyes and ears on the inside, to gauge the danger, ASAP. A psychic cult leader suspected of murder calls for a full-scale investigation."

"But not an official investigation."

"If you're worried about the legalities, Haven is still officially working for Senator LeMott."

Tessa was shaking her head. "I'm not worried on that account. I know John and Maggie would never send one of us into any situation without legal cover."

"Then what are you worried about?"

A little laugh escaped Tessa.

Hollis grimaced. "Okay dumb question. I mean, what's bugging you about the Haven/SCU connection in all this?"

"I'm just not sure of the boundaries. The limits."

"What do you mean?"

"We can watch. We can gather information. But we aren'tnone of us isauthorized to actually arrest or even detain anyone."

"Well, that's debatable. But not the point. You want to take Chief Cavenaugh into our confidence, don't you?"

"Why not? He does have the authority, without question or debate, to openly investigate, to detain or arrest, even on suspicion. And he's certain Samuel and his church are involved in the murders."

"He's also about as subtle as neon in his suspicions, according to what you told me."

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe Samuel and his church need to know someone's watching."

Hollis studied the other woman for a beat or two, then said quietly, "All that pain you felt. You believe we need to act quickly. To stop whatever is going on up there."

"Don't you?"

"Stop it, yes. As soon as possible, yes. But, Tessa, even with the chief on our side in this, the law isn't, and Cavenaugh has to follow the law. We have no hard evidence, remember? No proof that Samuel or anyone in his church had anything to do with Sarah's death, or Ellen Hodges's death. Or any of the others'."

"I know that. But at least the Chief can ask his questions directly; we're smiling and pretending."

"It's just another way to investigate, and you know it. You also know, I hope, that nobody would blame you if you decided it isn't a way you want to be involved in this."

Tessa shifted beneath the other woman's steady gaze. "I'm not going to bail. It's justI guess that dream unsettled me even more than I thought."

"I'm not surprised. What Samuel is doing, if we're right about any of this, is about as unnatural as it comes. And whether his motivation is the usualif more literalpower trip of a cult leader or something more, what we do know without question is that he's dangerous. And getting more so. Six of the eight known victims in this area died in the last two yearsand that doesn't even begin to count the women killed last summer in Boston, and last October in Venture, hideous murders we're convinced Samuel was ultimately responsible for."

"And all we have are questions."

"It's not all we have. We suspected he was a murderer. That he was killing with his mind, his abilities, if not with his own hands. This could be why he kills, this apparent need for energy. The hunger you sensed and saw in your dream. This could be one answer, or part of an answer. But it doesn't change anything. We have to find all the answers, like the critical one of how to stop him. Preferably before anyone else dies."