“I’ve got something,” Nick said. He reached into a knapsack and took out two zippered plastic bags, each containing a few strands of hair. “I want a DNA sequence run on both of these—both mitochondrial and Y-line—and tell them I want to know the haplogroup too. Have you got all that?”

“Got it.” The courier took the bags and the first of the evidence boxes and headed for the parking lot.

“Where’d you get those samples?” Kegan asked.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Nick, tell me—I should know.”

They were interrupted by another voice: “Nick! I want to talk to you—right now!”

They looked up and saw Danny Flanagan charging across the field toward the tent.

“Uh-oh,” Nick said under his breath.

“Nick—what did you do now?”

“I demonstrated problem-solving abilities and exercised personal initiative.”

“What?”

“I dropped by to see Senator Braden yesterday.”

“You what?”

“Do me a favor,” he whispered. “Act like it’s something you would have done too.”

“Nick,” Danny said, “I was just informed that you paid an unscheduled visit to Senator John Braden yesterday. Is that true?”

“Let me think,” Nick said. “Yesterday was such a long day.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that.”

“Who gave you permission to do that?”

“I didn’t think I needed permission.”

“I thought I made myself clear yesterday.”

“Is there some FBI regulation that says I shouldn’t pursue a possible source of information in the course of an investigation? Kegan, help me out here—is there any reason I shouldn’t have interviewed Senator and Mrs. Braden?”

Kegan’s mouth dropped open. “You saw Victoria Braden? What was she wearing?”

Nick rolled his eyes.

“Exactly what information were you looking for?” Danny demanded.

“We need to identify these bodies,” Nick said. “We could use some help.”

“And you think Braden knows who they are?”

“This is his property—he could have family records. C’mon, Danny, it was a logical assumption.”

“It’s Daniel—and if you wanted to inquire about the senator’s family history then you should have gone through proper channels.”

“What channels?”

“First of all, me. I would have cleared it with the Bureau, and they would have made the request through the senator’s chief of staff—”

“And by that time we’d all be buried here. You would have told me no or the Bureau would have put it on the back burner or Braden’s chief of staff would have shelved it until next month’s staff meeting. That’s how ‘channels’ work, Danny—you should have learned that by now.”

“You were just looking for a shortcut.”

“As I recall, the shortest distance between two points is still a straight line. Besides, I didn’t want the information secondhand—I wanted to ask Braden myself.”

“Why?”

“To find out if he was lying.”