Like the rest of us, Jennie appeared horrified and appalled, though it was now clear that the Jennie you saw and the Jennie you got were very different species.

But as I thought about it, the ingredients of this foul ca.s.serolean internalizer, a psychopath, a need to escalate the violence-clearly linked the perpetrator to the crime, nor was there the slightest doubt who ch.o.r.eographed this carnival of slaughter. Still, there's a wide gap between knowing it and proving it beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Likewise, I thought Jennie's background and Terry Higgens's prognosis explained why Jennie plucked poor Jason Barnes from the immense and varied pool of government servants undergoing background checks. Essentially, Jennie hunted for herself, at least a reasonable mirror of herself, a psychological doppelganger she could knowingly bring into sharp focus for the rest of us, because, really, Jennie was describing someone she knew intimately: herself.

Ergo, Jennie was self-aware enough to know who she was, and how she got there. I knew that if I talked with psychiatrists they would tell me that for most, self-knowledge is the first step on the road to salvation and self-perfection. Yet for others, I think, it is the direct path to self-resignation. For whatever reasons, Jennie chose not to fight her inner demons; she chose to feed their terrible urges.

Perversely it was probably this same self-awareness that drew Jennie to the study of psychologyas girls of the sixties used to say, to find herselfjust as it gave her the extraordinary acuity to understand other twisted minds. Recalling her words when we discussed Jason, she insisted that he was a victim of his past, that predestination grasped and led him, just as it guides us all. I think, looking back on it, that Jennie wasn't talking about Jason; she was offering me her Jungian rationalization for her own state of being.

But crazy as she might be, an insanity plea was out of the question. She knew right from wrong, and she knew that what she had done was in every moral sense wrong, because she went to such fierce and imaginative lengths to escape detection. In fact, Jason was a shadow of her own sad history in almost every way, except one-Jason eluded the conscription of fate, Jennie did not.

But in Larry's words, the Bureau now had a problem of Holy s.h.i.t proportions flopping around its plate. The scale, sophistication, and difficulty of the recent murders suggested a killer with long practice and varied experience. There had to be a long treadmill of escalation in Jennie's past. The Behavioral Science Unit now had to sift through every case Jennie ever workedparticularly her most notable successesto determine whether the investigator might also have been the predator. Scary thought. But I had my own big problem.

As though reading my mind, Jennie interrupted my musings and asked, "So are we here to talk about your problems, or about mine?"

"You are my problem."

"Oh , . . Poor little Sean got his feelings hurt."

We were getting nowhere. Which was exactly where Jennie's taunts were meant to land us. But this was her idea, so somehow I was on her agenda, I thought I knew why and suggested, "You must be wondering how I knew."

"Why would I wonder? You made lots of blunders and misjudgments. You've made another"

"Have I?"

"Don't kid yourself. Look, a few months ago, I might have seen Jason Barnes's file. Maybe I even saw his father's file. Thousands of files roll across my desk. They certainly never stuck in my mind."

"You know, Jennie, I wish I could believe you. But you lied about your background, you lied throughout the case, and you're still lying. It's too late for the truth to set you free, but it can keep fifty thousand volts from ruining your hairdo."

She stared at me a moment. "I had a reason for that."

"For what?"

"Misleading you about my background."

Apparently this topic was sensitive for her. "Tell me about it."

"It's simple. Every time I tell people, I get this look, and they say, 'Oh, you poor little thing.' I find pity disgusting."

"And I thought you were just trying to hide a bad memory."

"You're a bad memory. You're here."

She was beginning to annoy me, and I decided to annoy her back. "I'm curious, Jennie. Did you stand outside and watch your parents roast? Did you peek inside the window and watch their skin bubble and fry?"

"That's sick. Stop it."

"Did you listen to their screams and howls? Did you sniff the air and relish the odor of their burning flesh? Tell me, Jennie. How did it smell?"

A flash of anger showed in Jennie's eyes. She started to speak, and I said, "Share it with me, Jennie. I want to hear. How did it feel to murder your own parents? This is a new one for me-I am sincerely curious."

But she knew where I was going with this, and she smiled and said, "The shock and awe's not working, Sean." She added, in a tone that was surprisingly nonchalant, "Read the police report. It was an accident. My father smoked. We always warned him it would be bad for his health."

As she said, this wasn't working so I changed the topic and informed her, "They'll get you on conspiracy, at a minimum."

"Will they? Where's the proof I called Clyde? Where's the proof I knew Clyde?"

"As your lawyer will eventually advise you, Jennie, in court not everything has to be proved. All cases have elements of circ.u.mstantial construction."

"Yes, and all winning cases are built on evidence and facts. Not conjecture," she pointed out.

"Good point. In fact, I thought it might be enlightening for you to learn how much we do know."

As I expected she might, Jennie liked this suggestion. "It would be very interesting to hear what you think you know. Please proceed."

After a moment I said, "Well, you'll recall that I spent a lot of time with MaryLou, and later, a little time with Clyde."

"Don't hold that against me. You should recall that you volunteered for that."

"No, you volunteered me. You told Clyde to pick me."

"Conjecture again."

I ignored her and said, "You should know that I informed MaryLou that the Feds knew about Clyde, and that in short order they would know about her."

Jennie looked a little annoyed by this news. "Didn't we tell you not to do that? Didn't we warn you it was dangerous?"

"Very emphatically." I added, "Jennie, I have to tell you, MaryLou did not take this news well. She became very . . . agitated. An interesting verb, don't you think?"

Jennie gave no indication that the word was interesting.

"She never mentioned your name," I admitted, "but she talked at some length about the scheme, starting with you going to Fort Hood and tracking down Clyde." This wasn't the complete truth, but true enough.

"How? How did I find Clyde and meet with him?"

"I don't know how."

"Then you're in a difficult position. You can't prove I met Clyde. Nor will you ever, because I never did."

After a moment, I said, "But it's not hard to guess. He was the third suspect you looked into, and the moment you laid your profiler's eyes on him, you knew. So you shook him up good and then offered him salvation. Kill for you . . . and he walks, scot-free, with a boatload of money. Otherwise, he and his pals are going into the slammer until their grandkids' teeth rot."

"Is that how it'll be presented in court, Sean? A guess."

I said, "At first, MaryLou thought it was a bad deal and a worse idea. Right? Until Clyde a.s.sured her that their new friend would do more than provide information . . . their new friend would actually head up the effort to stop them. Wowwhat a deal. What could go wrong?"

Jennie said, "Complete nonsense. I always agreed they might have an inside source. But it wasn't me."

"But let's a.s.sume for a moment it was you."

"This is silly."

No, this was surreal. In every way she seemed to be the same Jennie I knew, yet she wasn't in any sense the same Jennie. The Jennie I knew was brave, n.o.ble, and resourceful. This Jennie was a lying, conniving, murderous b.i.t.c.h. I said, "For this to work, first you had to eliminate the man who took your job. Clyde was an expert marksman in the Army, a lifelong gun nut, and poor John Fisk had not a clue he was being hunted. Boom, boomFisk was maggot meat, and Jennifer Margold has his desk and his mantle."

Her face remained perfectly composed, as though we were talking about some other Jennie. "Ridiculous."

"Should I go on?"

"You're very clever, Sean. This is almost comically entertaining. By all means."

"Only one problemhow to ensure these killings ended up on your desk. There are like . . . what? . . . four, five SACs in the D.C. Metro Field Office?"

"Four."

"Thank you. The problem is, if it's plain and simple murder, the SAC with homicide on his slate gets the crack at it. So about a month before this thing kicks into gear, you slap up a Web site and put a bounty on the President. You tip the Al Jazeera network to be sure it's advertised, and we learn about it. As the honcho for national security in D.C. you were in the loop when the bounty was detected. Right?"

"I was informed, yes."

"Why did you deny that when I asked?"

"It was compartmentalized knowledge, Sean. The government has this crazy idea that sharing state secrets with strange men I've just met is taboo. Silly, isn't it?"

"Oh, please. The cat was already out of the bag. Phyllis informed the whole group."

"And did that give me authorization to discuss it with you?"

Obviously she had an answer for everything. I said, "Anyway, suddenly it looks like a.s.sa.s.sinations with national security overtones, and it's yours."

She laughed. "You're concocting a plot so convoluted it will sound outrageous to any jury."

"You're right. It's completely outrageous. Do you mind if I jump ahead to the endgame?"

She rolled her eyes. "Why not?"

"Let's begin with a little setting. I'm in the townhouse with the bad guys, MaryLou's scared that she might get caught, and Clyde's b.i.t.c.hing about how his source screwed him. So now I know they've got an inside source and I ask myself, Hey, don't these idiots know I've got a transmitter in my intestines? I'm a cop magnet. Haven't they been warned?"

"Go on."

"Well, I've got a gag over my mouth so I can't ask."

"And if you did ask, they wouldve killed you and run."

"There was that, too."

"Did you ever think they didn't know because I wasn't their source? Let me remind you, I knew about the transmitter."

"And your lawyer should make exactly that argument to the jury I would." I added, "But you knew they'd been compromised. And you knew that if any of those three were captured alive . . . Well, that's always the problem with a conspiracy. Someone always turns stoolie."

"Is that a fact?"

"Cut the c.r.a.p, Jennie. It's beneath you."

"Go on."

"Ergo it was time to improvise. It's not complicated. The secret had to go to the grave."

"And how would I arrange that?"

"You tell me."

She was shaking her head. "You know what I think, Sean?"

"Jennie, I haven't got a clue how you think, much less what you think."

My outburst seemed to amuse her. She chuckled, and after a moment she said, "We'll get to what I think in a moment. Finish telling me what you think."

"Well. . . where was I?"

"You were with Clyde and MaryLou." She pointed out, "I believe I was about to save your life."

"You mean spare my life. After all, had I not uncovered Clyde--as you knowthe initial plan was to kill me the instant I handed over the money."

She appeared to be confused and said, "You seem to be implying that I told Clyde to keep you alive." After a moment of pretending to think this through, she chuckled. "Oh ... I suppose you're thinking I wanted you alive to draw us to them."

"It was ... a brilliant betrayal. You advised Clyde that if the cops found them, they would need barter. Just be sure I'm electronically sterile, and in the event of a turn for the worse, I was their way out."

She thought about that a moment. She said, "More nonsense. They had you as a hostage, yet there was no negotiation."

"No, but you knew there wouldn't be. In fact, that's why you had them murder Joan Townsend. She wasn't on the original kill list, was she?"

Jennie looked at me curiously. In her worst nightmare, she was probably sure n.o.body would ever put this together.

"As you surely told Clyde," I continued, "things were heating up, and all the good targets were too heavily protected. But Joan was soft, unsuspecting, and vulnerable. Poor Clyde was too ignorant to know that wasting the wife of the FBI Director was tantamount to putting a gun to his own head. Feds are still cops and all cops hate cop killers. Cops really hate killers who murder cop familiesand to murder the top cop's wife in such a public, in-your-face fashion was a humiliation on top of an insult. There would be no negotiations, and Clyde and his pals had no chance of surviving a shootout."

"Sean, listen to yourself. You're accusing the Bureau of executing those three. I sure hope you don't intend to repeat that in court."

She was right, of course. Though it didn't really matter. I said, "So we're at the point where the HRT guys are crashing into the room, l.u.s.ting for blood, you're right behind them . . . and you . . . Well, there sat the final loose end, poor Jason Barnes."

Jennie shook her head. "I was cleared in Barnes's death three days after the shooting. It's public record, Sean. You gave a statement to that effect yourself." With a look of staged anguish, she said, "All that smoke and confusion ... it was ... a terrible mistake. I regret it, of course . . . but we can't change the past, can we?" She asked me, "Incidentally, aren't the investigation findings admissible evidence?"

I nodded.

"Thank you for pointing that out. They exonerate me. In fact, I'll suggest to my lawyer to make sure it's entered as evidence."

We stared at each other a moment. Clearly I was losing this battle of wits and wills. She knew it and I knew it. From that very first murder scene at Belknap's house, I now knew, Jennie had chosen me. I had impressed her with my bright deductions and p.i.s.sed her off with my c.o.c.kiness, and Jennie had decided I was the one to beat. She would cozy up to me, she would partner with me, we would share intimacies and grow close, perhaps she would even f.u.c.k me. And then she would kill me.

Recalling the look on her face at the instant before she blew Jason's brains out of his head, I was sure she toyed with the idea of popping us both. Had she thought she could fabricate an excuse, had she thought she could get away with it, I wouldn't be in this prison yard, I'd be a chalk outline. She was now settling that belated score by letting me know she was smarter than me, she would get away with these murders, she would win.

In fact, Jennie said, "But neither Clyde nor MaryLou ever mentioned my name, did they?"