“He said the characters in Dungeons and Dragons, Dune, and Condottiere were predictable and boring — which, I must admit, they are sometimes. Then he said some of the characters in his game were chaotic evil instead of lawful good. He said they weren’t fake heroes like in most RPGs; his characters were more like people in real life. They were basically selfish, didn’t really care about others, didn’t follow society’s rules. He said Horsemen was the ultimate fantasy game. That was all he would tell us about the Four Horsemen, but it was enough. I mean, you could see it was a game for total psychos.”

“What was his call name?” Agent Dwyer asked Michael.

“Call name, or his real name?” Michael asked, and offered up a sly, superior smile.

Agent Dwyer and Hampton looked at each other. Call name, or his real name? They turned back to Michael.

“I traced him, just like you traced me. I got through his encryptions. I know his name, and I know where he lives. Even where he works. It’s Shafer — Geoffrey Shafer. He works at the British Embassy, on Massachusetts Avenue. He’s some kind of information analyst there, according to the embassy’s Web site. He’s forty-four years old.”

Michael Ormson looked sheepishly around the room. He made eye contact with his parents, who finally looked relieved. Then he looked back at Hampton. “Is any of that stuff helpful to you? Did I help?”

“Yes, you did, Laughalot.”

Chapter 58

GEOFFREY SHAFER HAD VOWED he would not get high on pharmaceuticals tonight. He’d also decided he was going to keep his fantasies under control, under wraps. He understood precisely what the psychobabbling profilers on the murder cases would be thinking: his fantasy life was escalating, and he was approaching a rage state. And the profilers would be exactly right — which was why he was playing it cool for a while.

He was a skillful cook — skilled at a lot of things, actually. He sometimes put together elaborate meals for his family, and even large dinner parties with friends. When he cooked, he liked to have the family with him in the kitchen; he loved an audience, even his wife and kids.

“Tonight we’ll be eating classic Thai,” he announced to Lucy and the children as they watched him work. He was feeling a little hyper, and reminded himself not to let things get out of hand at home. Maybe he ought to take some Valium before he began to cook. All he’d taken so far was a little Xanax.

“What sets Thai food apart from other Southeast Asian cuisines are the explicit rules for proportions of ingredients, especially seasonings,” he said as he prepared a centerpiece of carved vegetables.

“Thai is a distinctive cuisine, blending Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Portuguese, Malaysian. Bet you didn’t know that, Tricia and Erica.”

The little girls laughed, confused — so much like their mother.