And every encounter was more painful and fraught with horror.

He could protect her. He'd managed to jerk her out of that mental quicksand tonight.

Barely.

No doubts. He could control it. If he moved fast, there would be minimal danger.

He hoped.

The phone was ringing as he opened his bedroom door.

“I beg pardon,” George said when Silver picked up. “Though I don't see why I should apologize when you were the one disturbing me. As you know, my quarters are right below the kitchen, and it sounded like two horses galloping over my head. Now, I don't mean to interrupt a midnight tryst, but I thought I'd check to see if there is anything wrong or if I could be of assistance.”

“You can fire your security team that's patrolling the grounds. Trask was out there tonight.”

Silence. “You're sure? O'Neill didn't report any disturbance to me.”

“I'm sure.”

“How?”

“Dammit, I said I was sure. Now, why don't you stop questioning me and go see why O'Neill didn't do his job.”

“Excellent idea. I do hope I find that you have a copious amount of egg on your face.” George hung up.

Silver was spreading dossiers on the desk when Kerry came into the library. “Hello. You look more wide awake. Ready?”

She nodded. “Would it matter if I wasn't?”

He met her gaze. “Yes, it would. I hate like hell prodding you. And it surprises me as much as it does you.”

She looked quickly down at the dossiers on the desk. “Well, I'm ready.”

Silver came around the desk to stand beside her. “This is all that's left of Trask's hit list. One senator. Three scientists from the Firestorm project who Trask would consider a threat. Where do you want to start?”

“Who was his last target?”

“Senator Pappas. He burned to death in an automobile accident a few days ago.”

“And before that?”

“Bill Doddard. Professor of molecular chemistry at Princeton.”

“Then he's hitting randomly?”

“So it would seem.”

“Then let's look at the scientists first.” She opened one of the dossiers and studied the photo of a fortyish woman with short wavy hair and an engaging smile. “You've examined these?”

“Many times. The one you're looking at is Dr. Joyce Fairchild. She has a PhD in three fields and was instrumental in the completion of the larger dish. She wasn't at all pleased when the project went down the tube.”

“Angry enough to try to take it out on her own?”

“Trask might think she was.” He flipped open another dossier to reveal a photo of a plump, bushy-haired man in his sixties. “Dr. Ivan Raztov. He was in a think tank in Russia before the Cold War ended and he joined Firestorm. He was head of testing as well as making contributions to the development of the larger dish. According to his notes, Trask never trusted him. Of course, Trask didn't really trust anyone. He was too possessive.” He handed her the last dossier. “Gary Handel. He's in his late twenties, a young wunderkind who is reputedly a wizard of a molecular engineer. He came in near the end of the project, but he's brilliant, ambitious, and definitely after the gold ring.”

Handel was thin, sandy-haired, and looked as eager as Silver had described him, Kerry thought. “And the senator?”

“Senator Jesse Kimble. He's been in the Senate for over twenty years. He's a good old boy from Louisiana.” He paused. “Cam liked him. They didn't agree on most things, but he said he had integrity.”

“Evidently they agreed on Firestorm.”

He nodded. “It seems they did.”

“How well protected are these people?”

“Damn well. After the first murders they didn't take any chances. They were being shadowed anyway. The President decided that it wasn't safe to trust anyone connected to the project and set Homeland Security to intimidate them from talking or trying to continue the project. But since the first deaths, their residences have been protected by a jamming barrier and they've all been assigned a battery of Secret Service agents to guard them and their families.”

“Which doesn't appear to have helped.”

“It made it more difficult.” He made a face. “But these are smart, savvy professionals who have their own share of ego. They think they can take care of themselves. They're not willing to be stuffed into safe houses until Trask is caught.”

“I can understand how they feel.”

He smiled. “Because you're probably more independent and stubborn than they are.”

“I don't like trusting someone else with my well-being.”

“Yet you trusted your fellow firefighters.”

“That was different. Do you have a dossier on Trask?”

He nodded and handed her a folder. “There's not much here that I haven't told you. He was born and raised in Marionville, West Virginia. Brilliant child, brilliant adolescent. Kind to pets and sucked up to adults. Passed all the psychological tests they threw at him. Earned a Fulbright scholarship. Never made a false step until he took off with Firestorm.”

“That's hard to believe. But maybe there's something here that will trigger a memory, something I didn't pay any attention to at the time. Besides, I want to see what he looks like.” She flipped open the folder and glanced at the picture inside. A ripple of shock went through her. Trask was fortyish, with a receding hairline. Wide blue eyes stared out of a smooth, unlined face with childlike curiosity. He didn't look like a monster, and somehow that was even more terrible. She quickly closed the folder and put it back on the desk. She found she couldn't take more exposure to Trask at the moment. “Later. We're wasting time.” She glanced at the clock. It wasn't one yet, but that didn't stop her sense of urgency. She handed Silver two of the dossiers, kept the other two for herself, and settled in the leather chair. “Water. We have to try to find some connection or location with water. . . .”

He sat down at the desk. “Then let's get to work.”

No egg,” George sighed as he entered the library. “To my intense humiliation and disappointment.”

George was dressed in black jeans and sweater and looked very unbutlerlike, Kerry thought as she glanced up from the dossier she was reading. “Egg?”

“On my face,” George said. “There were fresh footprints by the front gate. I took a cast and called in the gendarmes to check it against Trask's shoe size.”

“It was Trask,” Kerry said.

“You seem as certain as Brad.” George gazed curiously at her. “How? Did you see him?”

“No.” She glanced down at the dossier. “Ivan Raztov lives in an apartment in Baltimore. I checked the city map, Silver. Nowhere near any body of water. Joyce Fairchild has a house in the burbs of Fredericksburg. Ditto. No lakes or rivers nearby. But Gary Handel has an apartment overlooking the Potomac.”

Silver nodded. “And Senator Kimble lives in a plush subdivision in Virginia called Twin Lakes. It's a possible.”

“What's a possible?” George asked.

Silver was silent a moment before he said, “I have an informant who told me that the next Trask victim would be connected with water.”

George's brows lifted. “Indeed? The same informant who told you Trask was here tonight?”

Silver nodded.

“Then don't you think it's time to share this informant with me and the authorities?”

“No,” Kerry said.

“Oh, a ‘deep-throat' type informant?” George nodded. “I understand perfectly. I'm hurt, but if that's the way—”

“Knock it off, George,” Silver said. “If you're so hot to share information, why don't you call one of your Secret Service buddies and tell them to put their people on stakeout on the alert? They might want to do some checking to make sure everything's okay.”

“They'll want to know who your informant is too.”

“Too bad.”

“They can get very nasty.” He headed for the door. “But don't worry. I'll save you. I'll tell them I saw this vision in my crystal ball. . . .”