Sam stared at him angrily. A tear rolled down her left cheek. 'And what if they're true?' she asked.

'What if what's true?'

'The accusations,' she said, turning on her heel.

'Sam!' he called, following her. 'Sam, I didn't me—'

'Bible?' someone incredulously cried. Agent Atta. Sam stopped and whirled.

'Bible!' Atta bellowed from behind him. 'Freeze, asshole!'

Thomas stopped in his tracks.

'Hands up. Over your head.'

Thomas did as he was told, too stunned to feel anything, let alone think.

'Now turn slowly.'

'Shelley?' Sam shouted. 'He's here to help!'

'Help? I don't think so.'

Thomas had turned as she said this, but his protest was quashed by the sight of Agent Atta's gun levelled at his chest. A red dot swayed across the breast of his sport jacket. A wave of heat flashed through him. Terror.

'Th-this is insane,' he croaked.

'I'm afraid your professional opinion means squat around here, professor. You're suffering something of a credibility crisis.'

'Shelley!' Sam cried.

In the dark Agent Atta's look was hard and handsome in the way of solid women. Something in her eyes told Thomas that she enjoyed pointing her gun. 'Your professor friend,' she said to Sam, 'has been what you might call less than forthcoming. It seems that while we were interviewing him in his office this morning, our SUB was sleeping off a hangover in his house.' She paused for an instant to let the significance of this sink in. 'Gerard's over at his place now. The Evidence Response Team is en route.'

Sam approached her boss warily, casting a searching look at Thomas as she did so. The DoJ advisor, Dean Heaney, sat on the corner of an unoccupied desk just behind Agent Atta. He smiled as though watching a skirmish between family members he equally despised.

'Ask him,' Atta said to the junior agent.

'Is it true?' Sam said rigidly, her look somewhere between stunned and devastated. Very unprofessional.

'Yeah,' he said.

'That's why you rushed home this morning.'

'I wanted to tell you, it was just that—'

All at once her demeanor became hard and cynical-professional. For some reason Thomas found this almost as disconcerting as Agent Atta's gun.

'Wanted?' she said. 'Then why didn't you?'

Where did you go? Sam?

'I'm not sure.'

'This guy's a psychology professor?' Dean Heaney chortled from behind. 'Remind me not to send my kids to Columbia.'

Between the gun, the accusations, and Sam, Thomas felt he might have a heart attack. 'He was my best friend for eighteen years,' he said hotly. 'Eighteen years! What did you expect me to do?'

'The right thing,' Agent Atta said.

'And handing him over to the Feds is always the right thing, is it? Talk about fucking credibility crises. No. I had to know for sure.'