I put a hand on Jennie's leg under the table and squeezed, a signal to back off. Jennie drew a breath. Speaking at Tanner, but clearly to me, she said, "I hope I'm not being too harsh on you, Mr. Tanner. We're investigating the most serious case in the land. Somebody assassinated three of our highest officials, and coldly murdered thirteen others. Now they are promising to murder our President. You've suggested a link to your case. We need to know if it's worth following. Understand?"

"Sure. And I-"

"Wouldn't you agree there's a compelling difference between this. .. this team of thieves you're hypothesizing, and a trio of expertly trained killers?"

"Well, I think-"

"What you should think-what you should know-there's a threshold in every criminal mind. You're describing thieves who tailor their schemes to avoid having to kill. They have a moral or pragmatic line in the sand."

"Crime is a stepladder, Miss Margold. Like dope-start with marijuana and eventually you're mainlining heroin."

Clearly, Jennie did not appreciate this lecture on criminology, and replied, "Boy… I sure wish I had your intuitive insights before I taught criminal motivation at Quantico for five years." She looked at me. Turning back to Eric, she said, "There has to be something you're withholding. Right?"

Eric's face was slightly pink. He was twisting his wedding band around his finger, I thought metaphorically, wishing he was wringing Jennie's neck. "No… unless you want to hear about the other thefts."

"I…" She looked at her watch and shook her head dismissively. "We don't really have time for that."

Jennie had made her point, but she had been really rough on the poor guy. He kept glancing at General Tingle, probably wondering if he still had a job. Actually, I felt sorry for Eric Tanner.

In a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, I turned to General Tingle and asked, "Earlier you asked me to hold that thought. What thought?"

He'd been so preoccupied watching Eric being bent over and Roto-Rooted that he needed a moment to come to his senses. "What? Oh, yes… right. I was going to say, when you raised the issue of an insider, Eric and the CID detachment at Fort Hood went through a painstaking process to try to pinpoint that source."

I nodded at Eric. It wouldn't hurt to get a few points back on the board, and I said, "Tell me about that."

Eric cleared his throat and recovered a little of his cockiness.

"Well, our people considered a number of variables. Soldiers are reassigned every two or three years, so we're sure- uh… we think we're dealing with a civilian employee, somebody with access to range control data, logistics information, information on MP security procedures, and certain other command information."

"Sounds reasonable."

"We narrowed it down to five civilian suspects."

"That's a workable number."

"Yeah, but that's when we hit a brick wall. They all looked good, and they all had discounting factors. So we sent this list to the Behavioral Science Unit, and we asked them to have a profiler assess our suspects and determine our most likely candidates."

Sounded like a smart move to me, but Jennie mumbled, "Good luck."

The general looked a little surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the BSU is up to its ass in serial killers, serial arsonists, serial rapists, and, these days, serial snipers." She turned to Eric and asked, "Have you gotten a response yet?"

"No."

"And you probably won't. Ever," Jennie informed him. "The BSU gets perhaps ten thousand requests a year, from the rest of the FBI, from every local and city police department in the country, and, these days, from police forces around the world who've heard of the unit and its unique abilities. The unit's very small and notoriously overworked. Your case is too vague and too trivial to merit their attention. It's probably near the bottom of the slush pile."

Jennie then turned to me. She pointed at her watch and said, "We need to be going."

I nodded. Everybody nodded, apparently agreeing that we should be going.

General Tingle stood, and we both stood. The general remarked to us, "I warned you that it might be difficult to isolate a particular case."

Jennie shrugged. "Elimination is as important as discovery. We've at least ruled out three cases that aren't hopeful."

In that light, I said, "However, General, you and your people should keep searching. It's possible the FBI screen missed some likely cases, and it's also possible the case was never reported to the FBI in the first place."

Tingle positioned himself between us, took our arms, and began speeding us along to the door. He couldn't get rid of us fast enough. "In an hour this headquarters will be swarming with investigators. I'll send a worldwide alert to all CID stations to review all lost and stolen weapons cases. I'll call if we get anything."

Eric Tanner looked particularly relieved as we bid our adieus and went back outside and climbed into the MP humvee for the drive back to the helicopter. Jennie was quiet and moody Not a word was said during the ride.

Fortunately, Jimbo had somehow gotten his hands on a thermos of coffee and two mugs, and I suddenly saw him in a whole new light. You can run on adrenaline for only so long, after that it's all about caffeine.

The helicopter lifted off, and Jennie still said not a word. Eventually, she turned to me."Was it your impression we got anything useful out of that?"

"Probably not."

She exhaled deeply "I found that very… frustrating." After another moment she said, "That Tanner guy, he pissed me off."

"I thought you two hit it off really well."

"I'm serious. He got under my skin."

"Fooled me."

"He was so full of himself. I can't remember seeing shoddier police work. CID people… are they always that amateurish?"

"Now, that's unfair."

"Is it? If I brought a half-baked theory like that to my boss, I'd be fetching coffee and doughnuts for the bookkeepers."

"Goodness-did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

"We never went to bed."

"Ah… that explains it."

"Would you get serious?" Apparently she was in a really foul mood, because she added, "I shouldn't have to remind you that every minute is precious. That was a complete waste of our time."

"Fine. That's what we'll report back."

"Fine." She stared out the window, and I stared out the other window.

I hadn't seen her like this, except at our first meeting, when the gun was really at her head. But as somebody wise and knowing once advised me, women speak two languages, one of which is verbal. Still, I thought I knew what was going on here. This wasn't about Eric Tanner, this was about George Meany. These two were playing for keeps. He had undermined her from day one, and now he was trying to deep-six her career, dropping dimes on her to Townsend, and who knew what else. Being her boss, George had lots of advantages he was not hesitating to use. Jennie's only chance was to bring home breakthroughs, not dead ends.

After a few minutes of silence, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward her. She asked, "Am I being a bitch?"

Well, I do know when to keep my mouth shut.

She said, "I know I am." "Well… actually-" "Sorry. Lack of sleep. Lack of breakfast." I did not reply to that either.

She said, "When we're done debriefing, let's get that hotel room."

And like that, the day was off to an interesting start.