With the mere possibility—the victims were rarely actually transported so far—the whole weight and power of America's premier law-enforcement agency descended on the case like a pack of especially hungry wolves. The real mission was always the same: to get the victim back alive, and there the results were excellent. The secondary objective was to apprehend, charge, and try the subjects in question, and there the record, statistically speaking, was better still. They didn't know yet if Kimberly Norton had been a kidnap victim. They did know that she would he coming home dead. That single fact, for any FBI agent, was a professional failure.

"Her father's a cop."

"I remember, Dan."

"I want to go out there and talk it over with O'Keefe." Part of it was because Captain Norton deserved to hear it from other cops, not through the media. Part of it was because the cops on the case had to do it, to admit their failure to him. And part of it would be for Murray to take a look at the case file himself, to be sure for himself that all that might have been done, had been done.

"I can probably spare you for a day or two," Shaw replied. "The Linders case is going to wait until the President gets back anyway. Okay, get packed."

"This is better than the Concorde!" Cathy gushed at the Air Force corporal who served dinner. Her husband almost laughed. It wasn't often that Caroline Ryan's eyes went quite so wide, but then he was long accustomed to this sort of service, and the food was certainly better than she customarily ate in the Hopkins physicians' dining room. And there the plates didn't have gold trim, one of the reasons that Air Force One had so much pilferage.

"Wine for madam?" Ryan lifted the bottle of Russian River chardonnay and poured as his plate came down.

"We don't drink wine on the chicken farm, you see," she told the corporal with a small measure of embarrassment.

"Everybody's this way the first time, Dr. Ryan. If you need anything, please buzz me." She headed back to the galley.

"See, Cathy, I told you, stick with me."

"I wondered how you got used to flying," she noted, tasting the broccoli. "Fresh."

"The flight crew's pretty good, too." He gestured to the wineglasses. Not a ripple,

"The pay isn't all that great," Arnie Van Damm said from the other side of the compartment, "but the perks ain't too bad."

"The blackened redfish isn't bad at all."

"Our chef stole the recipe from the Jockey Club. Best Cajun redfish in town," van Damm explained. "I think he had to trade his potato soup for it. Fair deal," Arnie judged.

"He gets the crust just right, doesn't he?"