Dr. Horowitz’s lesson this day was interesting to me. It concentrated on the work of Professor Robert Hare, who’d done original research on psychopaths by using brain scans. According to Hare’s studies, when healthy people are shown “neutral” and “emotional” words, they respond acutely to emotional words, such as cancer or death. Psychopaths register the words equally. A sentence like “I love you” means nothing more to a psychopath than “I’ll have some coffee.” Maybe less. According to Hare’s analysis of data, attempts to reform psychopaths only make them more manipulative. It certainly was a point of view.

Even though I was familiar with some of the material, I found myself jotting down Hare’s “characteristics” of psychopathic personality and behavior. There were forty of them. As I wrote them down, I found myself agreeing that most rang true.

Glibness and superficial charm

Need for constant stimulation / prone to boredom

Lack of any remorse or guilt

Shallow emotional response

Complete lack of empathy . . .

I was remembering two psychopaths in particular: Gary Soneji and Kyle Craig. I wondered how many of the forty “characteristics” the two of them shared, and started putting G.S. and K.C. next to the appropriate ones.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned away from Dr. Horowitz.

“Senior Agent Nooney needs to see you right now in his office,” said an executive assistant, who then walked away with the full confidence that I would be right on his heels.

I was.

I was in the FBI now.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

SENIOR AGENT GORDON NOONEY was waiting in his small, cramped office in the Administration building. He was obviously upset, which had the desired effect: I wondered what I could have done wrong in the time since we’d talked before class.

It didn’t take him long to let me know why he was so angry. “Don’t bother to sit down. You’ll be out of here in a minute. I just received a highly unusual call from Tony Woods in the director’s office. There’s a ‘situation’ going down in Baltimore. Apparently the director wants you there. It will take precedence over your training classes.”

Nooney shrugged his broad shoulders. Out the window behind him I could see thick woods, and also Hoover Road, where a couple of agents jogged. “What the hell, why would you need any training here, Dr. Cross? You caught Casanova in North Carolina. You’re the man who brought down Kyle Craig. You’re like Clarice Starling in the movies. You’re already a star.”

I took a deep breath before responding. “I had nothing to do with this. I won’t apologize for catching Casanova or Kyle Craig.”

Nooney waved a hand my way. “Why should you apologize? You’re dismissed from the day’s classes. There’s a helicopter waiting for you over at HRT. You do know where Hostage Rescue Team is?”

“I know where it is.”