"Tyler won't budge on that. He keeps saying there's no probable cause even to investigate Rusk, much less search his house or office. And technically speaking, he's right."

"Come on, John. Tyler's just-"

"The special agent in charge. Don't forget that. He has authority over every FBI agent in Mississippi. Don't worry, Rusk is bottled up in his house right now, and I've got six agents covering the place."

"No idea where Dr. Tarver is?"

"None."

"Thora Shepard?"

Kaiser looked embarrassed. "She was in Rusk's office this afternoon, but somehow she slipped out without our guys seeing her."

"Come on!" cried Alex, coming off the table again.

"A lot of people work in that building, Alex. Four agents just weren't enough."

"What about Chris?"

Kaiser pushed her back down. "Dr. Shepard is here in the hospital."

A stab of fear went through her.

"He's conscious, and he's doing a little better. He has a high fever, and he's seriously dehydrated. He called 911 from the hotel, and when he got here, he asked for an old med-school classmate. Dr. Clarke."

"My mother's oncologist?"

"Yes. Between Dr. Clarke and Tom Cage, they managed to check Chris into the oncology unit here. He's just a few doors down from your mother. Now they've got an oncologist from Sloan-Kettering involved."

Alex could scarcely comprehend it all. She felt as though she had come out of heavy sedation for surgery. "What about Chris's son? Ben Shepard? He's only nine, and he's staying with some older woman in Natchez. Has anyone checked on him?"

"Dr. Shepard was delirious when he arrived, but he kept asking about the boy-and you, by the way. He finally managed to make a call. Ben seems to be fine, and Dr. Cage promised to check on him."

Alex struggled to see all angles of the situation through the fog in her mind. "Thora could be a threat to Ben," she thought aloud. "She's got to be out of her mind with fear. She's also a major threat to Andrew Rusk and his accomplice. What if she never left that building, John? What if she's hiding up there?"

Kaiser considered this.

Alex grabbed his arm. "What if Rusk killed her up there?"

"Rusk hasn't killed anyone yet, has he?"

"I have no idea. But Christ, for all we know, Tarver could have been up in Rusk's office today. You know?"

"I guess it's possible. Do you think they'd move so quickly against Thora?"

"Two words: William Braid."

Kaiser grimaced. "Damn it. All right, I'll get some people to start searching that tower."

"Officially?"

"No. But if we find a corpse, the case will break wide open. We can haul Rusk in and put his feet to the fire."

"I hope you find a very scared woman. Will Kilmer overheard Thora screaming at Rusk to cancel the hit on Chris. If she would turn state's evidence, we'd have Rusk by the balls. And I guarantee Rusk would cut a deal and give us Dr. Tarver."

"You really believe Thora would talk?"

"You show her the alternative, she'll crack. She wouldn't last a day in prison."

Kaiser squeezed Alex's shoulder. "I'm going now. It's time you got some rest."

Alex snorted in contempt. "You know I can't sleep with all this going on."

"Then I'll have the doctor sedate you."

"You can't sedate someone who has a concussion."

Kaiser shook his head in exasperation, but Alex could tell he was glad to see her healthy enough to argue with him.

"If you'll get them to discharge me," she said, "I promise I won't leave the hospital. I'll spend the night in my mother's room. That way, I can keep an eye on both her and Chris."

Kaiser stared at her for a long time. "Stay here," he said finally. "Stay right here, as in do not move. I'll see what I can do."

Andrew Rusk blinked awake to a hell beyond anything that his subconscious had ever spewed into his nightmares. Dr. Tarver had duct-taped him to the chair behind his desk. His mouth was taped shut. Lisa was sitting opposite him on the leather sofa, her slim wrists and ankles taped together, a silver rectangle of tape sealing her lips. Her eyes looked twice their normal size; more white than color was showing.

Tarver stood between Lisa and the desk, holding both arms high above his head. In his hands, twisting and curling about his muscular forearms, were two thick, black snakes with heads as big as a man's fist. A maniacal light shone from Tarver's eyes; some might have called it religious fervor, but Rusk knew better. Eldon Tarver was as far from God as a man could get. The doctor spun almost gracefully around the room, as though hypnotizing the serpents into passivity, yet the flexing tubular bodies never ceased their motion.

The room stank of urine, and Rusk soon saw why: Lisa's biking shorts were stained from her navel to her knees. Every square inch of his own skin was popping with sweat, but at least he hadn't pissed himself yet. The throbbing at the base of his skull had all but ceased, or maybe it had been blotted out by the agony radiating from his sternum. A bolt of terror shot through him when he saw the two spots of blood on his shirt, but then he saw a shining tangle of silver wire near Dr. Tarver's feet. Taser wires. Now he remembered the gun coming up in the hallway…the nearly point-blank shot at his chest. It was a stun gun. That was how Tarver had gotten him into this chair.

The doctor stopped his eerie dance and sat sideways on the desk, facing Rusk. The snake nearest Andrew was thicker than his forearm, with a diamond-shaped head and bulging poison sacs beneath its eyes. Cottonmouth moccasin, he thought. The knowledge made his sphincter clench. Unlike most snakes, cottonmouths would not retreat when humans approached. They were highly territorial and would stand their ground, sometimes attacking and even pursuing an intruder.

"I see you thinking, Andrew," said Dr. Tarver. "I'm sure by now you've worked out exactly why I'm here."

Rusk shook his head, but he knew all right. Eldon Tarver hadn't broken through a ring of armed FBI agents to do a fucking snake dance in Rusk's study. He wanted the diamonds. All of them.

"No?" said Tarver. "Perhaps you're a little distracted by my friends."

He stretched out his right arm until the nearer snake's head was within striking distance of Rusk's face. Rusk's throat sealed shut, locking his breath in his chest. The pupils of the moccasin's eyes were vertical ellipses, like cats' eyes. Rusk saw the heat-sensing pits that his scoutmaster had taught him to look for a quarter century ago. As though sensing his fear, the cottonmouth opened its huge mouth to reveal a puffy white oval topped with lethal two-inch fangs. The stench from its mouth was sickening-dead fish and other nameless creatures-but Rusk had passed beyond thought. When the doctor moved the snake closer, the ocean of piss Rusk had successfully withheld in junior high school flooded his khakis.

"The diamonds, Andrew," Dr. Tarver said in a voice of eminent reasonableness. "Where are they?"

Lisa was whimpering steadily on the sofa, but Rusk forced himself not to look. His inability to help her might unman him at the moment when he most needed his full faculties. He wished to God Tarver hadn't taped his mouth shut. He felt powerless without his voice. He was a lawyer, after all, a wizard in the art of persuasion-or so a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger had once written about him. Maybe that was why Tarver had taped his mouth.

Bullshit, said his father's voice. He taped your mouth so you can't scream and alert the FBI agents outside. Rusk hated that voice, but he knew he had to heed it. There was no room for illusion now. Dr. Tarver was back on his feet, spinning slowly, constantly changing the elevation of his arms as he did. Motion must have something to do with keeping the snakes from biting him. Or maybe it's just professional courtesy-one cold-blooded killer to another-