Alexander Burke loved stalking his prey even more than he loved killing them.

When on a job, he frequently envisioned himself as a tiger, padding through the brush on huge, soundless paws, getting closer by the second to administering violent death … and closer.

He had come to Arbor General Hospital prepared for a long surveillance, having brought a knapsack of energy bars and water in addition to night glasses and binoculars. As it turned out, he didn’t even need the night glasses. Now, lowering his binoculars, he wished he had bought a laser microphone so he could have listened in on the conversation between his former cohort Tim Vaill and the man that photos told him was Dr. Lou Welcome—the prey he was actually stalking.

He’d been watching the parking lot and main entrance to Arbor General from a perfect vantage point on a hill overlooking the main lot. The full resources of One Hundred Neighbors were working nonstop to locate Welcome’s hotel room in Atlanta. But Burke was certain the hospital was the most likely bet, so he had taken that watch himself.

It had required more work on Humphrey Miller’s fingers, but eventually the pathetic cripple had given up additional and useful details, including the existence of a secret lab in the hospital subbasement, and the name of Welcome’s hospitalized friend, Hank Duncan. Duncan was in bad shape and was being cared for in some kind of unit. If Welcome and Duncan were as close as Miller had said, odds favored Welcome would be visiting soon—and those odds had been on the money.

The tiger had no trouble spotting the two FBI agents as they headed for the lobby entrance. He identified Vaill right away. He’d never forget the face of the only man he had ever failed to kill. But it took a moment to realize the agent with him, also wearing shades, an FBI Windbreaker, and hat, was Dr. Lou Welcome. Clearly, they were wary.

The doctor wasn’t the only one to have altered his appearance. Because he was now one of the FBI’s ten most wanted—number one, actually—Burke had applied a fake beard to minimize the shape of his jawline, and heightened the contours of his face with makeup that added years to his age. He also traveled with a number of different disguises, and his current choice—a brown wig, brown contacts, and a latex covering that altered the shape of his nose—fooled the FBI agents who had swarmed Arbor General several hours before. He had even followed two of them down the stairs to the subbasement, although he refrained from getting any closer to the lab that Welcome must have told them about.