That seemed unlikely, Lucas thought, but he couldn't think of anything better.

An hour later, after taking the cuffed Nina Bennett to the Dallaglios' house to confront Jesse Dallaglio-both women agreed that they'd never met-they sent Bennett downtown for a formal statement, and pulled everybody else back into position.

"She doesn't have anything to do with it," Mallard said, meaning Bennett. "We're gonna get her statement and cut her loose."

"Got a story to tell, anyway. Private eye-you don't see many of them anymore. Not like that," Lucas said.

"She even had a bottle of booze in her car, and a little on her breath," Malone said. "And she must've smoked like a chimley. The whole car reeked."

"You said chimley," Lucas observed.

"Did not. I said chimney. "

"Chimley," Mallard said, absently. Then: "But you know what's really strange when you think about it? She smokes, like a chimley, and she drives a Volvo station wagon. I didn't think that was allowed."

"I said chimney, " Malone said.

After a minute of silence, the red-haired agent said, "Did not. Said chimley. "

THEY 'D STOPPED TEASING her about when they got back to the hotel, still frustrated from the false alarm. They parked, got out, and started walking for the main entrance, under the orange sodium-vapor lights, when somebody shot at them.

BANG!

They were spread out, walking away from the Suburban, walking in a line side-by-side, like a publicity shot for the Magnificent Seven, when the BANG! echoed off the building front and they all knew what it was and the agents went down and Lucas pivoted and realized in one half-second that the shooter had to be at the far end of the huge empty parking lot, a hundred and fifty yards north, or possibly on the roof of one of the old buildings down to the right, but there was no place else, really, and he ran toward his car, thinking Go-go-go and flashing on the difficulty of hitting a running deer at a hundred and fifty yards, hoping, hoping, looking north as he ran, looking for another muzzle flash, and then he was at his car and inside and fired it up and pulled out of the parking lot, catching from the corner of his eyes the confused, scrambling huddle of agents in the driveway and then he was on the street and accelerating…

He never saw her, he thought later.

He thought he found the place from where she'd fired the shot, a spot beside a big metal-sided building that would allow her to park right there, that would allow her to fire, and then to run back and climb inside her car in a matter of two or three seconds. She was probably moving before Lucas had reached his car, he thought.

He did the neighborhood anyway, gunning up and down the side streets. There was an entrance to a whole nest of interstates right there, and he was sure that was where she'd gone, and if she had, she'd be truly gone. He'd never know what car she was in if he went that way, so he stayed on the down streets, hoping against hope that she'd gotten cute, that she'd tried to drive away slowly, that he might see something.

But he did not.

AFTER TEN MINUTES, he headed back, paused by the metal building, looking over the spot he thought might have given her the shooting stance. She would have been able to rest her hand against the building, and across the parking lot, now a sea of flashing lights, they would have been perfectly illuminated and silhouetted against the hotel…

"Goddamnit," he said aloud.

Thiswas the reason for sending Bennett to watch Dallaglio. Rinker had found out where the out-of-town agents were staying, probably by calling around to the main hotels and asking for them by name.

Once she had the hotel, she'd scouted it, picked a place to shoot from. But she couldn't wait out there all day with a gun, hoping somebody would come along. By sending Bennett out to Dallaglio's, she'd known that all the big shots would be pulled out of the hotel, and once they found out that it was a false alarm, they'd all be coming back, late at night. She'd be in the dark, and they'd be walking in the bright lights of the parking lot…

As he thought that, he was swept by a sudden, physical chill. He hadn't even considered the possibility anybody might have been hit. He'd just run. He turned back down toward the hotel. A cop tried to wave him off, but he shouted, "FBI," and was pointed into the back lot. He got out and started around the hotel, and saw a man running toward him, a big man, flapping his arms like a goose trying to take off, and not getting there.

"She…," Mallard croaked. "She…"

"Whoa, whoa," Lucas said, and suddenly he was frightened himself. "Whoa, Louis, what happened?"

"She… she shot Malone. Malone was shot."

"Ah, Jesus, how bad? How bad?" Lucas looked past him, but there was nobody on the ground, nothing. She must be on the way to the hospital.

He started past Mallard, but Mallard hooked his arm and closed his eyes and said, "She's dead."

20

MALONE HAD BEEN HIT BETWEEN THE shoulder blades, Mallard said. The ambulance had been there in three or four minutes, but she was gone by then. She'd never opened her eyes after she'd gone down, had never made a sound. They put her in the ambulance and rushed her to a critical care unit, but Mallard had been a Marine lieutenant in the last days of Vietnam and had seen people shot, had picked up people hit in the back, and knew she was gone.

"But you're not right a hundred percent of the time. Let's get over there," Lucas said harshly. He was running a little out of control, he knew, but that had happened before, and he recognized it. "Let's get a car."

His reaction pumped a gram of hope back into Mallard, and Mallard was suddenly waving his arms at the red-haired agent, and in less than a minute, they were out of the parking lot heading west. Mallard was hoping again, but shaking his head. "I don't think, I don't think," he said over and over again. "I don't think…"

Lucas let him ramble: Mallard was in shock.

Rinker would call him again, Lucas thought. He had to talk to somebody about that-maybe Sally Epaulets. Rinker wouldn't be calling to crow about the shooting, but she'd call to talk: to make the point that this was tit-for-tat, Malone for Gene Rinker. Lucas couldn't imagine that she'd let her guard down, but he couldn't take the chance. As Mallard continued to press against the dashboard, leaning toward the hospital, Lucas took out his phone and called Sally.

She answered, and asked, "Is it true? It can't be true."

"She was shot. She's bad, and Louis thinks she's dead. We'll be at the hospital in a minute."

"Oh, my God. Her parents…"

"Listen. Sally. Listen. Are you listening?"

She was crying, Lucas realized, and he really didn't have time for that. "Stop that shit," he snapped. "Stop crying. Shut the fuck up."

That shocked her out of it, and she said, "What?"

"Rinker's gonna call me. You've got to be ready to track her. You've got to coordinate with St. Louis and everybody else. Everybody's got to be ready to roll, as soon as you have a location. Do you understand? You're monitoring me, just like we did before."

"But what about Louis…?"

Lucas glanced at Mallard, then said, "Louis is out of it for now. So you're carrying it, okay? Get this set up. She's gonna call tonight. And I gotta stay off this phone."

THEY WERE AT the hospital two minutes later, Mallard hopping out of the truck while it was still rolling into a parking space. There were two agents already there, outside the emergency room doors, but he bulled on past them through the doors and inside. Lucas followed, but stopped and looked at the agents.

"She's…"

"Gone," said one of the agents. "She was gone when she got here. They put her on a respirator, but there's nothing to work with, they say."