Two cars had parked behind him, and their occupants met him on the sidewalk. This morning, they had no need to hide, no call to sneak in the back way. Leading his team of five special agents, DiGenovese knocked on the front door.

An Hispanic woman opened up a few seconds later. "Good morning," she said. She was older, dressed in blue slacks and a 49ers sweatshirt. Her eyes were cautious, scared.

"I'm sorry to bother you so early, ma'am," said DiGenovese, smiling and showing his badge. "We've come to take a look through Mr. Gavallan's belongings. It shouldn't take too long, an hour or two at most. We hold a warrant from a United States Federal Magistrate giving us a right to search the premises. Here's my card. If you'd like, you can call my supervisor. His name is Mr. Dodson. He's at the number written right there on the back."

"Mr. Gavallan, he is okay?"

"He's fine, ma'am."

DiGenovese made it a point to be polite. His mother had spent her working life cleaning homes and offices, and as a child he'd accompanied her on her rounds. He would never forget the dismissive glances, the rude comments, the smug ill will of the moneyed classes.

The woman studied the card for a moment before shrugging and yielding the door. "Okay. You can go."

"Thank you. We'll try to leave things as we found them."

DiGenovese set off through the house, directing his men to take the bigger rooms first: living room, den, guest bedroom, office. He wanted the master bedroom for himself. Gavallan was a former military man. If he kept a gun, odds were it was nearby, either in a night table or a closet.

The house was open and casual, with just the right amount of furniture, not cluttered like the homes of a lot of rich people. The floors were mostly wood, the décor kind of Spanish, giving the place a hacienda-like feel. By the time he reached the bedroom, DiGenovese had decided it was just his style. If, that is, he were to ever become a multimillionaire.

Inside the bedroom, he made straight for the night tables. He pulled out each drawer in turn, finding a few books, a handkerchief, a box of allergy medicine. He moved to the opposite side of the king-size bed. That night table was empty, not even a used Kleenex. Lifting the mattress, he ducked his head and checked for a gun. Nothing.

To the closet. Shelves to the left. A hanging bar to the right. He ruffled through the stacks of shirts and sweaters, at first setting them neatly on the floor and then, growing frustrated, flipping them onto the ground. No bullets. No holster. Nada.

DiGenovese paused, catching sight of himself in the mirror, seeing the furrowed brow, the look of stormy determination. Actually, he didn't want to find the gun. But not finding it drove him crazy just the same. Go figure.

He moved into the bathroom.

Drawers. Nil. Medicine cabinet. Nil. Beneath the sink. Nil.

"Roy!"

The call came from Gavallan's office. DiGenovese hurried to the oak-paneled study, collaring his excitement. "What do you got?"

"Check it out," said Rosemary Duffy. She was a short, stocky woman, thirty, with cherubic cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. "Gavallan's holster. Minus the piece."

DiGenovese rushed forward and examined the leather. It was creased and worn from long years of cradling a pistol. He rubbed a finger inside it, and it came away oily. "What do you think? A long time since the pistol's been removed?"

Duffy smelled the holster. "A week. A month. Hard to tell."

Within minutes the study became a charnel house of wild, barely disciplined activity. Books were pulled off the shelves. Pillows pulled from the sofa and gutted. The stereo yanked from its tethers. This time it was DiGenovese who got lucky. Pulling a well-thumbed copy of the Bible from the shelves, he spotted a hidden compartment in the wall. "Rosie," he called. "Get over here. Do your stuff."

Within a minute, Duffy had opened the compartment. Reaching in her hand, she came out with a cardboard carton six inches long, three inches wide and three inches high. The word "Remington" was neatly printed on each side of the box.

DiGenovese opened the carton of 9mm shells.

Half the shells were missing.

"Sonuvabitch!"

Howell Dodson put down the phone. He felt light-headed, bewildered, and ashamed. How could he have been so wrong about someone? Why hadn't he listened more closely to Roy DiGenovese's warnings earlier? Why, even after the murders in Delray Beach, had he been so slow to warm to Gavallan as the prime suspect?

A holster with no gun, DiGenovese had told him.

A half-empty box of bullets.

And now this.

Dodson stared at the manila envelope that had arrived a few minutes earlier stamped "Department of the Air Force: Confidential" and the sheaf of papers that comprised Captain John J. Gavallan's service record lying neatly on the desk beside it. Pushing his bifocals onto the bridge of his nose, he began to read the papers again. Once was not enough. His conscience was as obdurate as his investigative instinct and it demanded he be presented with the error of his ways a second time.

He stopped a few pages in, his index finger frozen halfway down. The entry was innocuous enough: "Summer Semester 1985 / USAF SOC /Grade: Pass." And below it, in capital letters, signifying a commendation: "HONOR GRADUATE."

Translated, the entry stated that during the summer between his junior and senior year at the Air Force Academy, Jett Gavallan had attended the Air Force equivalent of Army Ranger training- the Special Operations Air Command course- and graduated at the top of his class.

When Dodson asked DiGenovese about the Air Force commandos, his assistant whistled long and low. "They're hard-asses, sir. Mostly trained for rescue ops, but rescue ops in hot situations. Lot of gunplay, hand-to-hand combat, that kind of thing. Mean muthas, if you get my drift. Best thing I could say is I'd let them back me up any day. They're pros."

A little probing got Dodson the following: Special Operations Air Commandos were trained to scuba dive and parachute, to support themselves off the land for periods of up to three months, and to master land navigation and map reading. That wasn't all. They were also taught to be experts in small arms and had to qualify as sharpshooters with an M16.

Jett Gavallan wasn't just a pilot. He'd trained as a commando. To use sophisticated weapons. To kill with his hands.

Gavallan was their man, plain and simple.

Dodson read a little further. Even with the glasses, he had to squint to make out the letters. Though he tried to focus on the words, all he could see were bodies. Bodies pitched onto their desks. Bodies strewn across the floor. Bodies slumped in the corner. A tear slid down Dodson's cheek and fell to the paper.

Removing his bifocals, Howell Dodson rubbed at his eyes.

It was time he got a new prescription.