The more dangerous, the better.

"Don't! Stop!" Walsh suddenly yelled at him. "Stop or I'll shoot!

STOP!"

"Yes, as you promised," the Mastermind said.

He didn't stop, didn't slow down a step, kept coming inexorably.

Then he heard Agent Walsh pull the trigger. The single action that was supposed to cause his death, stop his world, solve the crime spree. But nothing happened.

"Awhh, and you promised, Agent Walsh."

He put his own handgun against the FBI agent's forehead. With his free hand, he brushed across Walsh's crewcut head.

"I'm the Mastermind, you're not. You've been dying to catch me, but I've caught you. I emptied your shotgun. I'm going to catch all of you. One by one. Agents Walsh, Doud, Cavalierre. Maybe even Detective Alex Cross. You're all going to die."

I arrived at James Walsh's home in Virginia around midnight on Sunday. Several of the neighbors were circulating nervously out on the street. I heard an elderly woman mutter and sigh," Such a nice man. What a shame, what a waste. He was an FBI agent, you know."

I knew. I took a deep breath and then I plunged inside the modest house where Walsh had lived and died. The Bureau was there in large numbers and so was the local police. Because an agent had died, the Violent Crime Unit had been called in from Quantico.

I spotted Agent Mike Doud and I hurried over to him. Doud looked ashen and maybe close to losing it.

"I'm sorry," I said to him. He and Walsh had been close friends. Doud lived nearby in the Virginia suburbs.

"Oh Jesus. Jimmy never said a word to me. I was his best friend for God's sake."

I nodded. "What do you know so far? What happened?"

Doud pointed toward the bedroom. "Jimmy's in there. I guess he killed himself, Alex. He left a note. Hard to believe."

I crossed the sparsely decorated living room. I knew from talking to him that Walsh had been divorced a couple of years ago. He had a sixteen-year-old son in prep school, and another at Holy Cross, where Walsh had gone himself.

James Walsh was waiting for me in the bathroom connected to the bedroom. He was curled up on the off-white tile floor, which was flooded with a lot of his blood. I could see what was left of the back of his head as I entered the room.

Doud came up behind me. He held out the suicide note, which had been placed into a plastic evidence bag. I read it without removing the plastic. The note was to Walsh's two sons.

It finally got to be too much for me. This job; this case; everything else. Andrew, Peter, I'm truly sorry about this.

Love,

Your dad

A cell phone sounded and it startled me. It was Doud's phone. He answered, but then handed it to me," It's Betsey,” he said.

"I'm on my way to the airport. Oh Alex, why would he do such a thing?” I heard her voice. She was obviously still in New York. "Oh poor Jim. Poor Jim. Why would he kill himself? I don't believe it. He's not the type."

Then she sobbed loudly into the phone, and though she was far away, I had never felt closer to her.

I didn't say what I was thinking. I held it inside and it chilled me a little. Maybe Betsey's gut reaction was right. Maybe James Walsh didn't kill himself.

I returned to New York City early on Monday morning. There was a nine o'clock briefing at FBI headquarters in Manhattan, and I made it just in time. I was holding a lot inside, holding it tight, trying not to look like anything was wrong.

I walked into a formal conference room wearing sunglasses. Betsey must have sensed I was there. She looked up from a mountain of paperwork, and she nodded solemnly. I could tell she'd spent a good part of the night thinking about Walsh. So had I. I took one of the empty seats, just as a lawyer from the Justice Department was beginning to address the group. He looked to be in his fifties, rigid and solemn, nearly without affect. He wore a shiny, charcoal-gray suit that had narrow lapels and looked at least twenty years old.

"An arrangement has been made with Brian Macdougall," he announced to the assembled group.

I looked over at Betsey, and she shook her head, rolled her eyes. She already knew.

I couldn't believe it. I listened closely to every word out of the Justice lawyer's mouth.

"You are not to speak about anything discussed in this room. We're releasing nothing to the press. Detective Macdougall has agreed to talk to investigators about the overall plan, and the execution of it in the Metro Hartford kidnapping. He has valuable information that could lead to the capture of an extremely important UN SUB the so-called Mastermind."

I was completely shell-shocked, undermined, and I felt totally fucked with. Goddamn Justice had made the deal over the weekend, and I would have bet anything that Macdougall got exactly what he had asked for. It made me physically sick, but that was the way Justice had been working ever since I became a cop.

Brian Macdougall had known exactly what kind of deal he could get from them. Now the only relevant question was, could he give us the Mastermind? How much did he know? Did he know a goddamn thing?

I would find out soon. I got to interview star-witness Detective Macdougall later that morning at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Detective Harry Weiss was there for the NYPD. Betsey Cavalierre would represent the FBI during the session.

Macdougall had two lawyers present. Neither of them wore twenty-year-old suits. They looked slick, very expensive, smart. The detective glanced up as we entered a small booking room where the meeting was to be held," ‘This stinks, right?’ he said. I happen to agree. But that's the system."

Macdougall the Philosopher sat down between his lawyers and the session began.

Betsey leaned into me. She whispered," This ought to be good. Now we get to see what Justice bought."