There were quick, polite hellos and handshakes all round. Senior Agent Betsey Cavalierre seemed to be sizing me up. Maybe it was because her boss and I were friends. Or maybe because I was VICAP, the official liaison between the FBI and the Metro police. Kyle took me by the elbow and steered me away from his agents.

"If the original two bank robbers are dead, who the hell did this job?" Kyle asked as we walked past ribbons of yellow crime tape snapping loudly in a crisp breeze from the southeast," This is as bad as it gets. You see why I brought you in?"

"Because misery likes company," I said.

The FBI ADIC, or assistant director in charge, walked with me inside the bank lobby. My stomach fell. Two female tellers were lying on the floor. They were dressed in dark blue business suits, now stained with their blood. Both were dead. Their head wounds indicated they had been shot at close range.

"Executed. Goddamn it. Goddamn it," Agent Cavalierre said as we stopped at the bodies. An FBI crime-scene unit immediately began videotaping the scene and taking still photographs. We headed toward the open bank vault.

Chapter Sixteen

It got worse in a hurry. Two more victims were inside the vault, a man and a woman. They had been shot several times. The business suits and bodies were riddled with bullets. Had they been punished too? I wondered. What were their sins? Why the hell was this happening?

"This makes no goddamn sense to me," Kyle said rubbing his face with both hands. It was a familiar tic of his and instantly reminded me of the many cases we had worked together in the past. We complained about it sometimes, but we'd always been there for each other.

"Bank robbers don't usually kill anybody. Not pros. "Agent Cavalierre spoke," So why do this sick stunt?"

"Was the family of the manager held hostage as in the Silver Spring robbery?" I asked. I almost didn't want to hear the answer.

Kyle looked my way, nodded. "Mother and three kids. We just got word on them. Thank God, they were released. They weren't harmed. So why were these four butchered, and the family released? Where's a pattern?"

I didn't know yet. Kyle was right: The robbery-murders didn't make any sense. Or rather, we weren't thinking like the killers. We didn't get it, did we?

"There might have been a screw-up here at the branch. If this is connected to the bank in Silver Spring."

"We have to assume it is," said Agent Cavalierre. "The father, nanny, and child were killed in Silver Spring because the manager was warned that the crew had to be out of the bank at a certain time or the hostages died. According to the video monitor at the bank, they missed by less than thirty seconds."

As usual, Kyle had information the rest of us didn't. He shared it now. "An alarm went to the police here in Falls Church. I think that's what prompted the four murders. We're trying to run down where the warning call came from."