I didn't reply.

"What do you want to do, John?"

"I don't know… this guy has me a little baffled. I'm trying to put myself in his head."

"Do you want my opinion?"

"Sure."

"I say we go to California."

"You said go to Frankfurt."

"I never said that. What do you want to do?"

"Call Ventura again."

"They have my cell phone number. They'll call me if anything develops."

"Call Denver."

"Why don't you buy your own cell phone?" She dialed the Denver FBI office and asked for an update. She listened, thanked them, and hung up. She said to me, "The Callums have been taken to housing at the Air Force Academy. We have agents staking out their off-post residence and waiting inside. Same as Ventura."

"Okay." We were on the Belt Parkway now, heading for Kennedy Airport. I was trying not to second-guess myself, trying to stay on the roll I was on, without blowing it at the end.

It's not easy being the man of the hour. Normally, I wouldn't confide all these doubts to anyone, but Kate and I were more than partners now. I said to her, "Call the L.A. office, and tell them to put a watch on consulate offices of countries that might help Khalil effect an escape. Also, make sure they're watching Wiggins' former Burbank house in case Khalil has old information and shows up there."

"I did that while you were talking to Stein. They informed me they already knew what to do. Get a little respect for the FBI, John. You're not the only genius in law enforcement."

I thought I was. But I guess I'm not alone. Still, there was something bothering me about how this was playing out. I was missing something, and I knew that I knew what it was, but I couldn't think of what it was. I ran the whole thing through my mind from Saturday to now, but whatever it was kept slipping away into a dark corner in my mind, not unlike how Asad Khalil kept slipping away.

Kate was on her cell phone to the woman at Fed Plaza who makes travel arrangements and was saying we needed info on first available non-stop flights to LAX and to Denver. She listened, glanced at her watch, then said, "Hold on." She said to me, "Where would you like to go?"

Where Khalil is going.

"Where is he going?"

L.A.

She got back on the phone and said, "Okay, Doris, can you book the American flight? No, I don't have an authorization number." She looked at me, and I pulled out my credit card. Kate took it and said to Doris, "We'll pay and put in for reimbursement." She gave Doris my credit card info, and added, "Make it First Class. And please call the L.A. office and advise them of our arrival. Thanks." She handed me my card. "For you, John, they'll pick up First Class."

"That may be true today, but by tomorrow they may not even pick up this cab ride."

"The government loves you."

"Where have I failed?"

Anyway, we got to JFK, and the driver said, "Which terminal?"

This is where I came in, on Saturday, with the same question. But this time I wasn't going to the Conquistador Club.

Kate said to the driver, "Terminal Nine."

We got to the American Airlines terminal, got out, I paid the cab, and we went inside to the ticket counter, where we got two First Class tickets in exchange for my available credit. We ID'ed ourselves and filled out Form SS-113 that identified our carry-on luggage as two Glock.40 caliber automatic pistols.

We had fifteen minutes to catch the flight, and I suggested a quick drink, but Kate looked at the departure board and said, "They're boarding now. We'll get a drink on board."

"We're carrying."

"Trust me. I've done this before."

Indeed, there was another side to Polly Perfect, which hadn't been revealed to me heretofore.

So, we flashed the creds and the Firearm Boarding Pass at the security point and got to the gate with minutes to spare.

The First Class flight attendant was in her late seventies or thereabouts, and she put her dentures in her mouth and welcomed us aboard. I asked her, "Is this a local or an express train?"

She seemed confused, and I recalled that seniority sometimes equaled senility.

Anyway, I was out of airline jokes, so we gave her our Firearm Boarding passes, and she looked at me as though wondering how I'd been licensed to carry. Kate gave her a reassuring smile. But perhaps this was all my imagination.

The flight attendant checked her manifest to assure herself of our identity, then went into the cockpit with the boarding passes, as per regulations, to inform the captain that two armed law enforcement people were on board, a nice lady and a weirdo, traveling together in First Class.

We found our seats, two bulkhead seats on the port side. First Class was half full, mostly people who looked like Angelenos going home, where they belonged.

Well, we weren't tarmacked too long, considering this was JFK, and we took off only fifteen minutes late, which the captain said we'd make up in the air, which is better, I guess, than making it up on the ground at LAX by taxiing to the gate at six hundred miles an hour while deploying the emergency chutes.

So, off we went, into the wild blue yonder, armed, motivated, and hopeful.

I said to Kate, "I forgot to buy clean underwear."

"I was about to mention that."

Ms. Mayfield was in a rare mood.

Another First Class flight attendant came around with newspapers, and I asked for the Long Island Newsday. I looked for and found a story about the Cradle of Aviation murders, which I read with interest. I noticed that this major Long Island story had no byline, which is sometimes a tip-off that the authorities were managing the story a little. In fact, there was no mention of Asad Khalil, and the motive for the murders was described as a possible robbery. Right. Standard armed robbery of a museum. I wondered if anyone was buying the museum robbery-homicide story. Specifically, I was wondering if Khalil would buy it if he saw it and believed that we were clueless. Worth a try, I guess.

I showed the story to Kate, who read it and said, "Khalil left a very clear message in that museum. That means he may be finished and heading home, or he has tremendous arrogance and contempt for the authorities, and he's saying, 'You won't figure this out until it's too late. Catch me if you can.'" She thought a moment, then said, "I hope it's the latter, and I hope he's going where we're going."

"If he is, he's probably there already. I just hope he's waiting until dark to make his next move."

She nodded.

Well, I needed a little drink or two, so I asked Kate to sweet-talk the grandma flight attendant into alcoholic beverages.

Kate informed me, "She won't serve us. We're armed."

"I thought you said-"

"I lied. I'm a lawyer. I said, 'Trust me.' That means I'm lying. How stupid can you be?" She laughed.

I was stunned.

She said, "Have a root beer."

"I'm going to have a fit."

She took my hand.

I calmed down and ordered a Virgin Mary.

The First Class meal wasn't too bad and the movie, starring John Travolta playing an Army CID guy, was terrific, despite a bad review that I recalled reading in Long Island 's Newsday, written by John Anderson, a so-called movie critic, whose opinion I trusted to be the exact opposite of mine.

Kate and I held hands during the movie, just like kids in a theater. When the movie ended, I put my seat back and fell asleep.

As often happens, I had a revealing dream about what I couldn't think of when I was awake. I mean, the whole thing just came to me-what Khalil was up to, where he was going next, and what we had to do to catch him.

Unfortunately, when I woke up, I forgot most of the dream, including the brilliant conclusions I'd come to. It's sort of like having a great sex dream and waking up realizing you still had a woody.