The Darker Side

arriving shortly and I need to get back to California.'

We say our good-byes to Dr. Johnston and head down the hall toward the front of the building. Our shoes click-clack on the linoleum, eerie in the context of our surrounds.

'What's your game plan?' AD Jones asks.

'The basics. Forensics on the plane where Lisa was killed, interviews of the passengers, start working up a profile. From there . . .' I pause. 'From there we need to get on to identifying other potential targets as quickly as possible.'

I don't state the obvious and most worrisome thing: A death's-head and '#143'--there's only one thing a killer would count. Leading, of course, to the next concern: how high will the counting go?

4

IT'S PAST ELEVEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT, AND IT'S FREAKING cold. I hate the cold.

The wind isn't fierce, but it is steady and it blows across the tarmac in short gusts that have numbed my cheeks. The moon is huge and bloated in a sky devoid of clouds. It has that look to it, the look that says it's the same moon that shone on the cavemen: it was here before me, it'll be here long after I'm gone. It took us about an hour to make our way to this private airport near Washington, DC. It's small and lonely, just a single hangar and a landing strip. My team and I will make our way from here to Dulles International Airport, where the plane Lisa died on awaits. I hug myself as we watch the private jet taxi on the runway. It's a white Learjet and I've been on it many times.

AD Jones seems unmoved by the temperature. He's smoking, a habit I gave up but still miss, particularly when I see someone smoking my old brand, as he does. I had been loyal to my Marlboros and in return they had always been there for me. They gave me comfort, I gave them years off my life. It was an equitable arrangement until it wasn't.

'Listen, Smoky, I need to talk to you about something.' He sucks in smoke, holds it, blows out a cloud. I watch and wait and envy. 'I want you to keep me in the loop. Daily. This is a different playing field than you're used to. Rathbun is decent enough for a Director, but in the end, he'll cover himself and feed you to the lions if it will help him.' His gaze is penetrating. 'Don't be fooled. You're expendable to him.'

'I can take care of myself, sir.'

'I know. Keep your eyes open anyway.'

'Aye, aye.' I click my heels and give him an exaggerated salute. He's unamused. 'This isn't a joke, Smoky. People at the DC level make a career out of hanging each other out to dry. You're a gifted agent, and God knows you're tough enough, but you're inexperienced on that playing field.'

'Okay, okay. I understand.'

'The area where he can really help you out is with the media. Do exactly what he says--don't answer any of their questions and refer them all to the Director. You've dealt with the media before, I know, but if this leaks it will be huge. The FBI has people that live for that shit, let them handle it.'

'Scout's honor.'

'Keep a gag on Callie.'

'I can control her.'

The look he gives me is doubtful. He flicks his cigarette into the night.

'Plane's done taxiing. Let's go.'

'GOOD GOD, HONEY-LOVE, IT'S TOO cold here,' Callie complains the moment her high-heeled feet hit the tarmac. 'Why are we here and not back in a place with civilized weather planning for my upcoming wedding?'

I smile, as always. I'm never immune to Callie. I don't think many people are.

Callie is a tall, skinny, leggy redhead, with model looks that only seem to deepen with age. She just turned forty, and if anything, she's more attractive now than she was five years ago.

Callie is aware of her beauty, and she's not above using it to her advantage, but appearance is unimportant to her in the larger scheme of life; it's her mind she's honed the sharpest. She holds a master's degree in forensics with a minor in criminology and has been hunting killers with me for the last decade-plus.

Callie has a sense of humor that not everyone appreciates or understands. Her use of 'honey-love,' for example, a favored phrase, is a total affectation. It comes from the South; Callie comes from Connecticut. I imagine she adopted it to poke fun at herself and annoy others, emphasis on the latter. Local legend says that she has a reprimand on file for calling the Director of the FBI, Mr. Rathbun himself, honey-love. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Callie's humor isn't mean-spirited. It simply says: If you take yourself too seriously, you'll have a hard time around me, so lighten up-- honey-love.

Then there is the other side of Callie, a darker part, the side the criminals get. She is ruthless in her search for truth, because truth is everything to her. If I were to commit a criminal act, Callie, who loves me, would hunt me. She might grieve as she did it, but she'd take me down. To do otherwise would be to deny her basic self and that's one thing Callie is not about.

She's set to marry Samuel 'Sam' Brady, the head of the LA FBI SWAT. It's a move that's caught everyone by surprise. Callie has been chasing men for years and enjoying them to their fullest for the pleasure they could give her, a kind of female Lothario. Emotional longevity has never been a part of the picture. Callie is intensely private about the serious goings-on inside her, but I know some of her secrets. Like her current addiction to Vicodin, the legacy of a spinal injury she got two years ago that nearly crippled her. Like the fact that she hadn't allowed herself to be close to a man for so long because she got pregnant when she was fifteen and was forced to give up her child. She's since reconciled with her long-lost daughter, and maybe that's a part of this sea change inside her. I don't know. I only have glimpses of her secret self, small treasures she's entrusted me with over the years.

Callie's greatest gifts to me have been her unswerving demand that we enjoy the moment, the now of life, and the invulnerable constancy of her friendship. I can count on her. It was Callie who found me in the aftermath of Joseph Sands, Callie who took my gun away and pulled me to her without a second thought, Callie who held me as I shrieked and screamed and ruined her perfect suit with my blood and tears and vomit.

'Political hoo-hah,' I say in response to her questions. 'And I don't like the cold either.'

'It's not so bad,' a low voice rumbles. 'Least there's no snow. I hate snow.'

Alan Washington is the oldest member of my team and the most seasoned. He didn't go straight into the FBI, but spent ten years working homicide as a member of the LAPD.

Alan is African-American. He's a big man, as in the startling 'big'

of a linebacker or a great oak, the kind of man who might make you cross to the other side of the street if you saw him coming your way late at night. His form hides the truth: Alan is a deep thinker with a big heart and a meticulous nature. He can sift through details for days, patient, never getting exasperated, never looking for shortcuts, sticking with it until he's broken a complexity down into its component parts. He's also the most skilled interrogator I know. I've watched him reduce the hardest of the hard to quivering, blubbering messes. The best testaments to the soul of Alan are that he's married to Elaina and that he loves her so obviously, so unashamedly, with a mix of wonder and pride. I was loved that way by Matt; it's nice, and it speaks to the character of the man who does it.

Alan smiles at me and tips a nonexistent hat.

'Thank God for small favors,' I reply, smiling in return. The next voice I hear is sour with disapproval.

'Why are we here?'

This question comes from the last member of my team. The tone of it--blunt, unfriendly, impatient--irritates me, as always. James Giron is brilliant, but he is about as unlikeable as a human being can be. We sometimes refer to him as Damien, after the son of Satan from The Omen. He has no social veneer, no interest in softening the blow, no visible regard for the feelings of others. He takes the concept of thoughtlessness to new heights.

James is a book of blank pages. I don't know if he even has a personal life. I've never heard him talk about a song or movie he enjoyed. I don't know what TV programs he watches, if any. I'm not aware of any personal relationships he's had. James doesn't bring his soul to work.