His dogged determination finally paid off, and he now headed this elite unit. He was allowed to recruit his own men, a motley crew at best, who came to him from all walks of life. Each man was required to go through the academy’s training program at Quantico first, and then he was sent to Morganstern for special testing and training. Very few made it through the grueling program, but those who did were exceptional. Morganstern was overheard telling the director he firmly believed he had the cream of the crop working for him, and within one year he proved to all the doubting Thomases that he was right. He then handed over the reins of the "lost and found" to his assistant, Frank O’Leary, and made the lateral move within the department to devote his time and effort to this very specialized group.

His team was unique. Each man possessed unusual skills in tracking the missing children. The twelve men were hunters who constantly raced against the clock with but one sacred goal, to find and protect before it was too late. They were every child’s greatest champion and the last line of defense against the bogeymen who lurked in the dark.

The stress of the job would have sent average men into cardiac but there wasn’t anything average about these men. None of them fit the profile of the typical FBI agent, but then Morganstern wasn’t your typical leader. He had quickly proven that he was more than capable of running such an eclectic group. The other departments called his agents the Apostles, no doubt because there were twelve of them, but Morganstern didn’t like the nickname because, as their leader, it implied all sorts of things about him that he couldn’t possibly live up to. His humility was yet another reason he was so respected. His agents also appreciated the fact that he wasn’t a by-the-manual boss. He encouraged them to get the job done, pretty much gave them a free hand, and always backed them up whenever it was needed. In many ways he was their greatest champion.

Certainly no one with the Bureau was more dedicated or qualified, for Morganstern was a board certified psychiatrist, which was probably why he liked to have his little heart-to-heart talks with each of his agents every now and then. Sitting them down and getting into their heads validated all the time and expense of his Harvard education. It was the one quirk all of them had to put up with and all of them hated.

He was in the mood to talk about the Stark case now. He had flown from D.C. to Cincinnati and had asked Nick to stop over on his way back from a seminar in San Francisco. Nick didn’t want to discuss the Stark case-it had happened over a month ago and he didn’t even want to think about it, but that didn’t matter. He knew he was going to have to discuss it whether he wanted to or not.

He waited at the regional office for his superior to join him, then sat down across from him at the polished oak conference table and listened for twenty minutes while Morganstern reviewed some of the particulars of the bizarre case. Nick stayed calm until Morganstern told him he was going to get a commendation for his heroic actions. He almost lost it then and there, but he was adept at concealing his true feelings. Even his boss, with his keen eye constantly on the lookout for any telltale signs of burnout or stress overload, was fooled into thinking that once again he was taking it all in stride-or so Nick thought.

When the conference wound down, Morganstern stared into the steely blue eyes of his agent for a long, silent minute and then asked, "When you shot her, what did you feel?"

"Is this necessary, sir? It happened over a month ago. Do we really need to rehash this?"

"This isn’t a formal meeting, Nick. It’s just you and me. You don’t have to call me sir, and yes, I think it is necessary. Now answer me, please. What did you feel?"

And still he hedged, squirming in the hard-backed chair like a little boy being forced to admit he’d done something wrong. "What the hell do you mean, what did I feel?"

Ignoring the burst of anger, his superior calmly repeated the question a third time. "You know what I’m asking you. At that precise second, what did you feel? Do you remember?"

He was giving him a way out. Nick knew he could lie and tell him no, he didn’t remember, that he’d been too busy at the time to think about what he was feeling, but he and Morganstern had always had an honest rapport with each other and he didn’t want to screw that up now. Besides, he was pretty sure his boss would know he was lying. Realizing how futile it was to continue the evasion, he gave it up and decided to be blunt. "Yeah, I remember. It felt good," he whispered. "Real good. Hell, Pete, I was euphoric. If I hadn’t turned around and gone back inside that house, if I had hesitated even thirty seconds more, and if I hadn’t had my gun drawn, it would have been all over and that little boy would be dead. I cut it too damned close this time."

"But you did get to the child in time."

"I should have figured it out sooner."

Morganstern sighed. Of all of his agents, Nick had always been the most critical of his own performance. "You were the only one who did figure it out," he reminded him. "Don’t be so hard on yourself."

"Did you read the newspapers? The reporters said she was crazy, but they didn’t see the look in her eyes. I did, and I’m telling you, she wasn’t crazy at all. She was pure evil."

"Yes I’ve read the papers and you’re right, they did call her crazy. I expected they would," he added. "I understand why and I think do too. It’s the only way the public can make sense out of such heinous crime. They want to believe that only a demented man or woman could do such obscene things to another human being, and only a crazy person could derive pleasure in the killing of innocents. A good number of them are crazy, but some aren’t. Evil does exist. We’ve both seen it. Somewhere along the way, the Stark woman made a conscious choice to cross the line."

"People are afraid of what they don’t understand."

"Yes," Morganstern agreed. "And there’s a large percentage of academics who don’t want to believe that evil exists. If they can’t reason it or explain it in their narrow minds, then it simply can’t be. I think that’s one of the reasons our culture is such fertile ground for depravity. Some of my colleagues believe they can fix anything with a long-winded diagnosis and a few mind-altering drugs."

"I heard that one of your colleagues believes that Stark’s husband controlled her and that she was so terrified of him, her mind snapped. In other words, we should feel sorry for her."

"Yes, I heard that too. Nonsense. The Stark woman was as depraved as her husband. Her fingerprints were on those pornographic tapes along with his. She was a willing participant, but I do believe she was breaking down. They’d never gone after children before."

"Honest to God, Pete, she was smiling at me. The boy was cradled in her arms, and she held a butcher knife over him. He was unconscious, but I could see he was still breathing. She was waiting for me. She knew I had figured it all out and I think she wanted me to watch her kill him." He paused to nod. "Yeah, it felt good to blow her away. I’m just sorry her husband wasn’t there. I would have liked to have gotten him too. Any leads yet? I still think you ought to put our friend Noah on his trail."

"I’ve been considering doing just that, but they want to take Donald Stark alive so they can question him, and they know if Stark gives him any trouble at all, Noah won’t hesitate to shoot."

"You kill a cockroach, Pete. You don’t domesticate him. Noah’s got the right idea." He rolled his shoulders to stretch his cramped muscles, rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, and then remarked, "I think I need to go on another retreat."

"Why do you say that?"

"I think I might be burning out. Am I?"