Dr. Rodman then made her most challenging statement. She believed that the Mastermind would strike again. "I'm willing to bet on it," she said, 'and I'm not a betting type of person."

I remained quiet for most of the meeting. I preferred to sit in the back of the class and listen. That was the way I had gone through Georgetown undergraduate and then Johns Hopkins.

Agent Cavalierre would have none of it. "Dr. Cross, what do you think about the possibility of our Mastermind hitting again?" she asked shortly after Dr. Rodman finished speaking. "Care to make your bet?"

I rubbed my lower face and I remembered that I'd had the same tic in grad school. I sat up in my seat.

"I'm not a betting person either. I think the list of potential targets is thorough. I agree with most of what's been said. One person is running this thing. Different crews were recruited for very specific tasks."

I frowned slightly at Betsey, then I went on. "I think the first robbery-murders were supposed to terrify everybody. They did. But in the Metro Hartford job, the crew was supposed to operate quickly and efficiently, without bloodshed. I didn't see evidence of venom or hatred in the Metro Hartford kidnapping. Not from what the hostages told us. That's inconsistent with the earlier bank robberies. The fact that no one was killed makes me believe … that it's all over. It's done."

"Thirty million and out?" Betsey Cavalierre asked. "That's it?"

I nodded. "I think the Mastermind's game now is catch me if you can. And by the way you can't."

Betsey Cavalierre came up to me after the briefing ended," Not to be a total suck-up, but I agree with you," she said. "I think he might be playing with us. He may have even set up Mitchell Brand."

"I think it's possible," I said. "Strange and insane as it seems on the face of it. He has a huge ego, he's competing, and that's the best thing we have going for us right now. It's the only small edge that we have."

"We're going to break for the night. Have a drink with me downstairs, Alex. I want to talk to you. I promise not to babble about the Mastermind."

I winced," Betsey I have to get home tonight. My little girl came back from the hospital yesterday," I told her. "Sorry I can't believe this has happened twice. I'm not trying to avoid you."

She smiled kindly. "I understand and it's no big deal. I just have this sixth sense that you need somebody to talk to. Go home. I've got plenty to do here. One more thing. A team of us is heading to Hartford tomorrow. We're going to interview employees and former employees at Metro Hartford You should be part of the group. It's important, Alex. We leave from Boiling Field at around eight."

"I'll be there at Boiling. Somehow, we'll get the Mastermind. If he did set up Mitchell Brand, it's his first mistake. It means he's taking chances he doesn't have to take."

I went home and had a fabulous dinner with Nana and the kids, the best in all of Washington that night. Nana had cooked a turkey, which she does once every couple of months. She says that the white meat of a turkey, properly prepared, is too good to have only twice a year, at Christmas and Thanksgiving.

"You see this, Alex?" she asked and handed me an article she'd clipped from the Washington Post. It was a listing compiled by The

Children's Rights Council on the best, and worst, places to raise a child. Washington DC was dead last.

"I did see it," I told her. I couldn't resist a little dig. "Now you see why I work late so many nights. I'm trying to clean up a big mess here in our capitol city."

Nana looked me in the eye. "You're losing, big guy," she said.

Irony of ironies, it was the night we always reserved for our weekly boxing lesson. Jannie insisted that I go downstairs with Damon and that she be allowed to watch. Damon had a line ready for the occasion. "You just want to see if I get sent to the hospital too."

Jannie retorted, "Lame. Besides, Dr. Petito said the boxing lessons, and your "phantom punch," had nothing to do with my rumor. Don't kid yourself, Damo, you are no Muhammad AIL”

So we went down to the cellar and we concentrated on footwork -the basics. I even showed the kids how Ali had dazzled Sonny Liston in the first two fights in Miami and Lewiston, Maine, and then done the same to Floyd Patterson after Patterson had taunted him for months before the fight.

"Is this a boxing lesson, or about ancient history?" Damon finally asked, his voice a mild complaint.

"Two for the price of one!" Jannie shouted with glee. "Can't beat that. Boxing and history. Works for me." She was back in all her glory.

After the kids went up to bed, I called Christine and got her answering machine again. She wouldn't pick up. I felt as if a knife had been slid between my ribs. I knew I had to move on with my life, but I kept hoping I could get Christine to change her mind. Not if she wouldn't talk to me. Or even let me talk to little Alex. I was missing him badly.

I wound up playing the piano again, and I was reminded that jelly is a food that usually winds up on white bread, children's faces, and piano keys.

I carefully wiped down the piano, then I played Bach and Mozart to soothe my soul. It didn't work.

The next morning I arrived at Boiling Air Force Base in Anacostia at ten to eight. SAC Cavalierre and three other agents, including James Walsh, got there promptly at eight. The behaviorist from Quantico, Dr. Joanna Rodman, showed up a couple of minutes late. We took off in a Bell helicopter that was shiny black, both official- and important-looking. We were off hunting the Mastermind. I hoped he wasn't doing the same thing with us.

We arrived at the downtown Metro Hartford headquarters at nine-thirty. As I entered the office building, I had the overwhelming feeling that the place had been consciously designed by the insurance company to inspire trust, even awe. The lobby had enormously high ceilings, glinty glass everywhere, polished black-ice floors, and over scaled modern art screaming from the walls. In contrast to the grand public space, the offices inside looked as if they had been designed by either the junior architect of the firm or its resident hack. Warrens of half-walled cubicles filled large, airless rooms on every floor. There was lots of 'prairie dogging' out of the cubes, plenty of fodder for Dilbert satire. The FBI had sent agents here before today, but now it was time for the big guns to go to work.

I saw twenty-eight people that day and I quickly found out that few of the Metro Hartford employees had any sense of humor. What's there to laugh about? seemed to be the company motto. It also hit me that there were very few risk takers among the people I met. Several of them actually said, "You can never be too careful."