I LIKED the white Continental better," Alli said as she slid into Jack's car.

He laughed as he put the car in gear. A moment later, he picked up the Secret Service detail in his rearview mirror. It was 11:20. The minutes were counting down to when he'd lose his access to her. It was now or never.

"Alli, there's something I've been wondering," he said. "Did the man who abducted you have a tattoo?"

Alli went rigid. She stared straight ahead.

"Alli, honey, it's all right for you to tell me."

"I only saw his arms." Alli slowly shook her head from side to side. "He didn't have any tattoos."

Jack, heading for the Carsons' house in Chevy Chase, did his best to keep to the minimum speed. He didn't want this drive to end yet.

"Alli, I know Ronnie Kray frightened you terribly, but it would be helpful if you could tell me something more about what you saw. Anything at all."

Alli, still sitting rigidly, said nothing.

"I want to catch him, Alli. You want that, don't you?"

She bit her lip, nodded.

"You're the only one who can help me."

Tears began to run down her cheeks. "I wish Emma was here. She could tell you what you want to know."

"You can, too."

Her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm not brave like she was."

Despite his best efforts, they'd entered Chevy Chase. This was it, then. The end. Jack relented. "Alli, your father has agreed to let me pick the detail guarding you."

"I want you," she said at once.

He nodded. "I'll be there, just not the whole time. But you can absolutely trust Nina and Sam. I know them, I've worked with them. They won't let you down."

He turned onto the Carsons' street, a cul-de-sac, saw more Secret Service agents in cars and on the sidewalk. They all watched him as he drove toward the large federal-style brick house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

"Home," he said.

"It doesn't feel like it." Alli shifted in her seat. "Nothing feels right."

"As soon as you get back to your routine, it'll all feel as familiar as it did before."

"But I don't want to get back to my old routine!" She sounded like a spoiled child.

Jack pulled into the driveway where Edward and Lyn Carson were waiting. He shut off the engine, opened his door, but Alli made no move to open hers.

"Alli…"

She turned to him. There was desperation in her eyes. "I don't want to leave you!"

"You have a responsibility to your parents. Tomorrow you'll be the First Daughter. From now on, you have to act like the First Daughter. The whole country will be watching."

"Please don't make me."

"Honey, it's what has to happen."

"But I'm afraid."

Jack frowned. "Afraid of what?"

"To leave you, to be here, I don't know."

By this time, the Carsons, concerned, had come up to the car. Lyn Carson opened the passenger's-side door, leaned in.

"Alli? Baby?"

Alli, still turned toward Jack, silently mouthed, Please help me.

Jack felt torn into a thousand shreds. He had failed Emma, he didn't want to fail Alli as well. But what could he do? The president-elect had given him an order that he was powerless to ignore. Alli wasn't his child. So he did the only thing he could do. He leaned over, whispered in her ear, "I'll see you later, I promise. Okay?"

As he pulled back, he saw her nod. Then she turned, got out of the car and into her mother's arms.

"Jack."

Edward Carson was at his side as he got out of the car. The president-elect pumped his hand then impulsively embraced him.

"There are no words." His voice was clotted with emotion. "You've brought our girl back to us safe and sound, just as you promised."

Jack watched Alli. Her mother, arm around her waist, walked her up the brick steps to the open front door.

"That's right," Lyn Carson said. "Random House wants you to write a memoir about growing up to be the First Daughter."

"She's a special young woman," Jack said. "I want Nina Miller and Sam Scott assigned to her permanent detail. Nina and I were partners in finding Alli. I worked with Sam at ATF until he transferred to the Secret Service three years ago."

Carson nodded. "I'll make the necessary calls right away." He looked at his wife and daughter for a moment, before turning back. "Jack, Lyn and I would like you at the inauguration, up on the dais with us. You're like a member of our family now."

"It would be an honor, sir."

In the doorway, Alli turned, gave him a tentative smile, and with a sweep of her mother's arm, vanished into her world of privilege and power.

FORTY — FIVE

WHO WAS Ian Brady? In other, more normal circumstances, Jack would have been preoccupied with finding that out. However, this case was anything but normal. What concerned him now was not who Ian Brady was but why he had chosen that name. Clearly, his other aliases-Ronnie Kray and Charles Whitman-followed on in a straight line from the first.

It was Jack's experience-the experience of any knowledgeable lawman-that criminals, even the highly intelligent ones, chose their aliases for a reason. An FBI profiler who had been brought into the ATF office on a case some years ago had said that giving meaning to an alias was a subconscious urge criminals found irresistible. In other words, they couldn't help themselves. Of one thing Jack was certain: The name Ian Brady held special meaning for this man. The trick was to find out what that meaning was.

With his paranoia at full mast, Jack bypassed the computers hooked up to the federal network, which included his own at the ATF office in Falls Church. What was required, he thought now as he made his way out of Chevy Chase, was a public cybercafe. Twenty minutes of hunting from behind the wheel of his car unearthed one on Chase Avenue, in Bethesda. He sat down at a terminal, typed the name Ian Brady, but all he got was a bare-bones recap from Wikipedia and About.com. On the other hand, after some false leads, he found a distributor of logwood, the substance Brady had inadvertently left on Calla Myers's coat. Taking down the address and phone number, he walked outside, checked the environment for tags. In the shadow of a storefront, he got out his cell burner, punched in the number of the distributor. He got nothing, no automated message, no voice mail. He wasn't all that surprised. The distributor was so small and obscure, it had a rudimentary Web site. Customers could order its product online, but other than that, the site looked as if it hadn't been updated in months.

S&W DISTRIBUTION was on the outskirts of the curiously named Mexico, Pennsylvania, 160 miles north of Chevy Chase Village. It took Jack just under three hours bombing down I-83N and US-22W to get there. By the time he exited PA-75S, it was already late in the afternoon. The sun, low in the sky, was bedded on thick clouds into which it expanded and slowly sank. Shadows lengthened with the beginning of winter's long twilight.

S&W occupied a ramshackle building a stone's throw from the railroad tracks that brought Mexico all the business it was going to get. It was impossible to tell what color the structure had originally been painted or even what color it was now. Jack's heart sank because at first sight, the place looked abandoned, but then he saw a young woman come out the front door. She wore cowboy boots, jeans, a fleece-lined denim jacket over a ribbed turtleneck sweater. As he pulled up, she settled herself on the clapboard steps, shook out a cigarette, lit up. She watched him with gimlet eyes as he got out of his car, walked toward her. She had an interesting, angular face. Its slight asymmetry made her appear beautiful. She was slim and small. She appeared to be in her late twenties.

As he approached, he heard a train whistle. The tremor in the tracks built as the train thundered toward them. The unsettled air of its bow wave crashed over them like a hail of gunshots. The young woman, her long hair flying across her face, sat as calmly as if the only sound to be heard was the crunch of Jack's shoes on the pebbly blacktop. Smoke dribbled from the corner of her mouth, and now that he was closer, he could see the tattoos on the backs of her hands, either side of her neck: the four main phases of the moon. She must have dyed her hair black to match her eyes, but the tips were golden. She wore a silver skull ring on the third finger of her right hand. The skull seemed to be laughing.