But now he was outside for the first time since the events in New Orleans, and the sky was filled with woolly clouds and an orange smear of sun settled toward the horizon. It was the magic hour, just before full twilight, when perfect clarity washes the world clean of its blemishes.

The doctor breathed deeply, enjoying the sweetness in the air. He let the sun caress him. He was walking along the lip of bank that flanks the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.; around him, like soldiers at parade rest, a thousand Japanese cherry trees stood heavy with leaf. The water was deep gray and calm; in the distance he could see the Lincoln Memorial, another temple to a dead president; and in another direction, the Washington Monument, that blank white spire.

But Dobbler was not thinking of dead presidents and their Roman temples or obelisks, nor of cherry trees. He was not thinking of the setting sun, or the pulsating traffic, or anything at all like that, though he enjoyed them all. He was thinking of teeth.

Glorious, glorious teeth. Teeth that never lie. That cannot lie. That are incapable of deceit.

For he had them now in his briefcase and would not let them go. He had survived.

The teeth were not actually in the briefcase, of course; what lay inside were Bob Swagger's dental X rays, taken from his dentist in Blue Eye, Arkansas, and forensic X rays of the blackened jaws found in the ashes of the Aurora Baptist Church, as taken by the sublimely gifted technicians of the Federal Bureau of Investigation crime lab in Washington, D.C., not a mile as the crow flew from where Dobbler now trod.

But neither the doctor nor Colonel Shreck had trusted the technicians. They had waited patiently until the right time and then the colonel made one of his magic phone calls to someone -- Dobbler didn't even want to know who -- and Dobbler went to Washington. He'd just gotten the two sets of X rays, and a more formal examination awaited them back at RamDyne. But he couldn't wait; he'd stolen into a public men's room, and pressed the two plastic membranes against the fluorescent lights. One by one he had chalked off the similarities. Yes, yes, there were three fillings on the left-hand side, in the second molar, the canine and the incisor. Yes, the first took the rough configuration of a star; the second was smaller, shaped roughly like an hourglass; and the third looked like the map of Sicily. Then there was the same slightly collapsed left lower jaw, where three teeth, for some unknown architectural reason, had sadly collapsed inward just a bit, with the middle one slightly twisted.

Those were the major parallels and he could see about a thousand minor ones. In fact, you could lay one X ray over the other, and though the scale was slightly off, it was obvious that the same mouth had been photographed.

That was it. A man may lie to his psychiatrist, his doctor, his wife, his employer, to God and to Mom, but his teeth tell all; they cannot lie. They yield all secrets. They confess. They are unambiguous.

So Dobbler had called Colonel Shreck, and then wandered across the mall and over to the tidal basin; it was time to enjoy life, which suddenly seemed mud-luscious with possibility. The whole world beckoned, offering its pleasures to Dr. Dobbler. He was purely, sheerly happy.

"Dr. Dobbler!"

Dobbler turned at his name, stunned that anyone knew him, and saw only a gray sedan, unremarkable, and in it a man who was also unremarkable but tough and coplike, whom he recognized from RamDyne.

"Dr. Dobbler. Colonel Shreck sent us. They need you."

"But -- " Dobbler raised his briefcase as if to protest and ward them off. See, it's in here, he wanted to say, it's over, the evidence that it's over, finally, is in here.

"We got some big problems," said the man, and Dobbler read fear in his eyes.

It was technically the Fourth Battalion (Air-Ranger) of the First Brigade (Air-Ranger) of the elite Acatatl Division -- but everybody called it Panther Battalion.

Nick read on. In April of 1991, the unit, some 250 men, a tough, blooded, jungle-warfare-center-trained elite of the Salvadoran Armed Forces, had been pulled from front-line antiguerrilla duty in the mountains for an intensive course in psychological warfare techniques. Because at the time the press was especially suspicious of the president's wild popularity in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, it was being extremely vigilant and cynical about American military aid to foreign countries; so the contract couldn't be taken on by certified American military or CIA special operations people. Through an elaborate scheme of diverted funds, this RamDyne outfit had gotten the contract. And for a month in an isolated jungle area, RamDyne operatives, veterans of some of the gaudiest special operations in history, had schooled the young Latinos in interrogation techniques, population control, intelligence gathering, ambush and counterambush, sniping and countersniping, a whole crash course in the dirty nitty-gritty of low-intensity warfare.

But there was a weird chemistry loose in that encampment.

"Unconfirmed reports insist," read the FBI investigation, which was forwarded to the Senate Intelligence Committee but never put on the record as being too sensitive, "that American trainers exhorted these young soldiers with voodoo rituals, thought-control processes and animal sacrifices that went well beyond the range of normal professional military training."

The file identified several of the trainers, and as Nick gazed at the abstracted dossiers, he saw nothing that surprised him. The trainers were drawn from the various American elite units that had fought secret battles all around the world since the war in Vietnam. The honcho appeared to be an ex-Green Beret lieutenant colonel named Raymond Shreck, of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a heavily decorated veteran of Korea, where he had been the youngest master sergeant in the United States Army at nineteen, an early Green Beret who'd helped train the Bay of Pigs volunteers in the early sixties when he was a young major, and a heavy-action three-tour 'Nam vet until, in 1968, he'd been court-martialed for torturing suspected Viet Cong agents. Somehow the Agency had taken care of him; he joined RamDyne the next year. His number-one man was Master Sergeant John D. ("Jack") ("Payne-O") Payne, of New York, New York, a former special forces noncommissioned officer, also with an extraordinary combat record in Vietnam. After the war, however, he had trouble readjusting to duties, was nabbed in an elaborate scheme to defraud the PX out of several thousand dollars, and, in lieu of a jail sentence and a dishonorable discharge, took an early retirement in 1978.

I'll bet you're a couple of tough pricks, thought Nick.

So maybe Payne and Shreck, pissed off the way their careers had gone belly-up, with their extraordinary records in combat and their flat-out willingness to go all the way were the true authors of what happened next. But there were other authors, as well. There was the increasingly hysterical right-wing fervor of the government of El Salvador; there was a stunning leftist victory, where a battalion of government troops had gone to sleep without putting out perimeter security and got badly shot up the next morning, losing twenty-eight men, all of them in front of American network news cameras; there was the pressure from Washington for results, results, results, something to show that American policy was working; and there was the anger, the fear, the bravado of Panther Battalion itself.

On June 8, 1991, Panther Battalion was airlifted from its secret mountain training camp into Ocalupo Valley, three hundred miles away, to conduct operations against a well-established guerrilla infrastructure. As the Panthers -- so called because of their black and green striped jungle fatigues and their black berets -- moved into the village of Cuembo, they came under sporadic sniper fire from a tree line flanking the village. The commander, Brigadier General Esteban Garcia de Rujijo, sent a reconnaissance squad into the village. Moving through the village square, the recon squad was caught in a clever crossfire. Two automatic weapons killed every single man. The guerrillas then mutilated the corpses and moved out.

It was the village of Cuembo that felt the full rage of Panther Battalion. Later (but unconfirmed) reports insisted that American training officers accompanied Panther Battalion into Cuembo but this was never proved. What is beyond dispute is that within the space of two hours on the afternoon of June 9, 1991, Panther Battalion killed over two hundred men, women and children. They were herded to the banks of the Sampul River, and there machine-gunned by the Panthers' automatic weapons. Dead children floated in the Sampul for days.

He made a face, and blinked, realizing that either out of rage or horror he'd begun to weep.

Shaking, he turned to the last page. No, it wasn't the famous Annex B, which was presumably locked up somewhere in the National Security Office or the Pentagon or FBI headquarters or out at Langley. But it was something quite interesting nevertheless.

It was an export order for an Electrotek AMSAT LC-L5400 series Directional Electronic Intercept Vehicle, on consignment to Salvadoran Military Intelligence, cleared by Customs, as delivered by RamDyne.

It was the kind of thing that could enable men in it to listen to a desperate man in a hotel room call FBI headquarters in New Orleans and ask for one Nick Memphis, and then go in and hack him to death with axes.

LANCER ADVISES NO FURTHER ACTION, said the stamp. NATIONAL SECURITY IS AT STAKE (REFER TO ANNEX B).

It was a war party.

Shreck, the hard-looking black man who was called Morgan State, and the serious Hatcher were waiting for him.

"Colonel Shreck, I -- "

"Listen to me, Dobbler. I need a fast assessment. Try not to get this one wrong."

Shreck's face was hooded and taut; he looked like the statue of a violent medieval German knight in the armor room of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that had briefly fascinated Dobbler when he was a child.

"Just before Swagger was killed, he spent some time in that truck with an FBI agent. Now, what I have to know, would he have talked? As we break the incident down, they were not together more than four minutes, all of it highly stressed. Is it possible that during that period of time, Swagger could have told the agent something, convinced him of certain things?"

"Ah -- " said Dobbler, stalling for time.

But then, "No. No, it's not probable. Swagger was a private, taciturn man, we saw it here. And he couldn't have trusted anyone and he couldn't have known who it was he'd have picked up. No, it's not likely."

"Possibly he passed him something," said Morgan State.

"But Colonel Shreck, there was no direct link to us. We operated under dummy institutions, and left no trail. What could Swagger have known?"

The colonel nodded imperceptibly.

"May I ask what's happening?" Dobbler said.

"Tell him," Shreck said to Hatcher.

"We've learned from a friend that an FBI special agent named Nicholas Memphis -- the agent Swagger kidnapped -- has requested access to the FBI's RamDyne file. It's exactly the sort of thing that Lancer is supposed to protect us from. And somehow -- stupidly, incredibly, by one of those bureaucratic screwups that happen, the transmission was authorized. He has the file. He knew Swagger and he has the file."

"Good lord," said Dobbler, a cold stab of fear coming into him. "Could he go to the press? Or to a politician? Or to -- "

"It doesn't matter," said Shreck impatiently, turning to Morgan State. "Get Payne. Tell him we want this Memphis taken, interrogated, and all his secrets removed. Then Payne can kill him."

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE.

The phone was ringing. Nick stopped drying his breakfast dishes and went to pick it up.

"Yeah."

"Nick?"

"Uh, yeah?" The voice, a female's, had a familiar lilt to it.

"Nick, it's Sally Ellion in Rec -- "

"Sure, hi, what's up?"

"Nick, you've got me in so much trouble." She was whispering.

"Oh. The file."

"I didn't know you were on suspension."

"Ah. Yeah, yeah, it was crummy of me not to tell you. I'm very sorry. It wasn't honest behavior. I just had this damn case I was really hot to clear. I thought...oh, it was so stupid, I thought in my time off I'd just be able to concentrate on it."

"Nick, I've got a directive to return that file by special courier instantly."

"Oh, Jesus. I hope you're not in any trouble."

"I have to have that file back. You weren't even supposed to leave the building with it."

"Yeah, but since I couldn't stay in the building, I couldn't read it there, could I? Anyway, Sally, I'm very sorry to have disappointed you. I'm done with it, I'll leave in ten minutes and have it back to you in an hour. Okay? And could this be our little secret, I mean, the fact that I actually looked at it?"

"Oh, yes. It has to be. I can't tell them you left the building with it. Please hurry."

"I'm on my way."

Nick showered quickly, and put on a gray suit. In a strange way it pleased him to have some mission in life, even if it was only to deliver the file.

He'd been turning over what he'd learned in his head. He remembered the strange message the man who may have been the Salvadoran secret policeman Eduardo Lanzman had crawled into the bathroom to leave for him. ROM DO was the message in the blood, in the split second before it was obliterated. Possibly the beginnings of the words Romeo Dog, which was early-sixties Army radio code for the letters R and D and the Bay of Pigs invasion force call sign in 1962? R and D. Ram and Dyne. RamDyne...

It was almost something. But it was still nothing. Why didn't he write RA DY, why ROM DO, what was there about the radio codes of the Bay of Pigs? If it was from the Bay of Pigs?

He shook his head, feeling an ache begin in it somewhere. He now believed that he had an indication -- but no legally constituted evidence, another matter entirely -- that this RamDyne was in some way involved in the murder of Eduardo Lanzman and possibly the murder, therefore, of Archbishop Jorge Roberto Lopez. He knew he'd ventured into very hazy areas, the vaunted wilderness of mirrors, where it was possible to lose your bearings in a second, and become so riddled with paranoia that nothing made sense anymore. Everything in him told him to back off, it was none of his business.

But the idea...those guys running around on their own special mission. Who watched them? Who paid them? Shreck, Payne, the others? To whom did they give their accounts? To some Lancer Committee. Who founded them? Where did they come from in the year 1964, suddenly rich and influential enough to get the deal going with fifteen hundred Armalite rifles. Who were they?

Annex B would tell him.

I've got to get Annex B, he told himself.

But what the fuck is Annex B?

"There he goes," said Tommy Montoya in the van, "that's my little Nicky."

Jack Payne, watching through the scope as Nick Memphis walked from his little suburban house to his Dodge, and climbed in, just grunted.

"Take him now, Payne-O?" asked Tommy.

"No. They're expecting him. Let him return the fucking file, then we'll nail him on the way out. What I want is someone in his house. He's got to have a piece in there. If it ain't a piece, he'll have a kitchen knife or a razor or something. I want it lifted. We'll use it when we chill his bones out after our little chat."

"Jack, man, it's no sweat, I can do the house," said one of the other team members.

"Yeah, Pony, that's fine, you do it. We'll wait on you."

"You don't want to tail him?" asked Mr. Ed, the driver.

"Nah. Let Pony get into the house and pick out a nice toy. No prints now, Pony, you got that?"

"Si, Jack, sure, got it."

"Okay, go to it, son."

Pony stepped out of the back of the Electrotek 5400 surveillance van parked a discreet distance down from Memphis's house. Jack watched him go. He was dressed like a workman. He went to the house, knocked on the door, then blandly went around back.

"He'll get in," said Edwards, always called Mr. Ed. "I seen him do locks. He's like a fucking genius with locks."

"Great," said Jack.

It was true. Pony was back in thirty minutes. His trophy was a little Parkerized Colt Agent.

Payne, wearing plastic gloves, popped it open and gently plucked one round out.

"Ooooo," he said, "Glaser safeties," looking at the blue-tipped bullet nested in the brass case and imagining the clusters of lead suspended like bunches of grapes inside the jacket. "These nasty suckers make instant spaghetti," he said.

"Oh, Nicky," said Tommy Montoya. "You in the shit now, my friend."

"Hi, I -- "

"Shhhhhh!" she whispered, her small pretty face knitting in anger. "Put it there," she commanded in the same conspiratorial whisper.

"Yeah, sure."

He set the box with the RamDyne file on her desk and backed away. She didn't look at it directly. He just stood there and could feel the sense of furious betrayal radiating off her neck, which was all he could see.

"Sally, I'm -- "

And finally she looked up.

Her face was compressed with pain. She was trying to show him how much he'd hurt her. Hurt her? He didn't even know her! The abrupt envelope of intimacy somewhat befuddled him. It occurred to him suddenly that this pretty, idiotic girl conceived herself as being in love with him, one of those crush things, nurtured from afar down through the months. He could not have begun to engineer such a turn of events and now that it was here, it embarrassed him; he felt as if he'd trounced on a fragile secret thing of hers. He felt unworthy. But also irritated. Hey, I never knew I meant anything to you, do you see?

"Did you have any trouble?" she finally asked. "I mean, getting back into the building?"

"No. No, you know it's funny, even though I don't have an ID or anything, they just let me back in. You know, what's his name, Paul on security, he just waved mildly, like he has every day for the past four years. I guess some people didn't get the word."

"I'll say."