Ballon pushed his strong fingers along his cheek. He savored the sandpaper roughness of his face. It was manliness that he felt nowhere else in his life. How could he feel manly as he sat inactive in this stuffy old room? As they reviewed procedure over and over in case they ever got inside. Code words. "Blue" for attack. "Red" for stay where you were. "Yellow" for retreat. "White" for civilians in danger. Light pulses via the radio in case audio would give someone away. One tone to close in. Two to stay where they were. Three to retreat. Emergency contingencies. He was beginning to wonder if Dominque knew about the investigation and was intentionally doing nothing in order to embarrass Ballon and put a stake in the heart of his investigation.

Or are you just being paranoid?

After this long at any task, Ballon had heard that paranoia was an inevitability. He had once had one of Dominique's men tailed, a longtime employee named Jean-Michel Horne. Horne had gone to a meeting whistling and Ballon's first thought was that he was whistling to annoy Ballon.

He rubbed his face harder. It's working, he thought as he exploded from the chair with disgust. He checked the urge to kick it through a ten-pane window that was older than he was.

The other men in the room jumped.

"Tell me, Sergeant!" Ballon demanded. "Tell me why we should not simply storm the place? Shoot Dominique and be done with it!"

"I honestly don't know," replied Sergeant Maurice Ste. Marie, who had been sitting beside him. "I'd rather die in action than die of boredom."

"I want him," Ballon said, ignoring his subordinate. His hand became a fist and he rattled it at the TV monitor. He put his entire body into the shaking of the fist. "He is a corrupt, twisted maniac who wants to corrupt and twist the world."

"Unlike us," said Sergeant Ste. Marie.

Ballon fired him a look. "Yes, unlike us! What do you mean?"

"We are obsessed men who want to keep the world free so that it can continue to breed lunatics like Dominique. Either way, it seems a hopeless tangle."

"Only if you give up hope," said Ballon. He retrieved his chair, slammed it back into place, and sat down heavily. "I lose sight of that sometimes, but it's still out there. My mother always hoped her family would forgive her for marrying my father. That hope was in every birthday card she ever sent them."

"Did they ever forgive her?" asked Sergeant Ste. Marie.

Ballon looked at him. "No. But hope kept my mother from becoming deeply depressed about it. Hope, plus the love she had for my father and me, filled that emptiness." He turned back to the screen. "Hope and the hate I have for Dominique keeps me from becoming too depressed. I will get him," he said as the telephone rang.