The pain was going away now. Pitt's leg felt like it was no longer part of him. The floodlights fused together in one massive blur, hurting his eyes. Everything seemed to slow down, and the voices became far away. Then the stretcher bearers picked Pitt up from the dock, moving, it seemed to him, as though they were wading through glue. He raised his head for the last time that day.

"Zac, one more request." Pitt's voice was down to a bare murmur. "What is the girl's real name?"

Zac looked down at Pitt and smiled with his eyes. "Her name is Amy."

"Amy," Pitt repeated. "Never knew a girl by the name of Amy before." He relaxed and fell back against the stretcher closing his eyes. The last thing he remembered before the soothing blanket of darkness fully covered him was the sound of a single shot, echoing from somewhere within the depths of the labyrinth.

TALLY

TALLY

The sky was a brilliant ceiling of blue as far as the eye could see. The summer air was hot and dripping with unseen humidity encouraged by burning waves from the blazing sun. In blinding radiance, tall white buildings stood like small chiseled mountains and reflected the heat onto the black asphalt pavement below; the traffic was heavy, and the sidewalks were crowded with scurrying office workers on lunch break as Pitt pushed aside the wide glass doors and limped stiffly into the air-conditioned lobby of the Bureau of Narcotics building.

For a bachelor, he thought, one of the wonderful things about Washington, D.C., is the overabundance of girls. They come in every size, age and disposition and swarm like chattering locusts throughout every government office in the city, providing the hungry male with all the advantages of a rich kid running amok in a candy store. Pitt selected his most charming, devil-may-care smile and offered it to a trio of giggling secretaries who exited the elevator. They returned his smile, accompanied with the usual combination of cursory and demure glances that women are prone to allow for strange men, and then wiggled past him into the lobby, sneaking an additional peek at him over their shoulders.

A moment later, playing the role of the wounded warrior to perfection, Pitt leaned heavily on his cane and limped from the elevator onto the thick carpet of the eighth floor. In the center of the anteroom a dozen girls, displaying an unrestricted forest of nyloned legs, sat at a dozen desks and furiously assaulted a dozen typewriters, never once hesitating to look up at him. He moved slowly over to a well-bosomed blond whose desktop contained a small rectangular sign: "Information." Then for a moment he stared down at her, admiring the view.

"Excuse me."

She didn't hear him over the din of the clacking machines.

"Excuse me," Pitt repeated loudly.