Inspector Pat O'Day had the good luck of drawing watch duty in the FBI's command center, Room 5005 of the Hoover Building. The room was oddly shaped, roughly triangular, with the desks of the command staff in the angle, and screens on the long wall. The quiet day they were having - there was adverse weather across half the country, and adverse weather is more of an obstacle to crime than any police agency - meant that one of the screens was showing the teams lining up for the coin toss in Denver. Just as the Vikings won the toss and elected to receive, a young lady from communications walked in with a couple of faxes from the Denver P.D.

"A murder case, sir. They think we might know who this is."

The quality of photographs on driver's licenses is not the sort to impress a professional anything, and blowing them up - then sending them via fax - didn't improve matters very much. He had to stare at it for a few seconds, and almost decided that he didn't know the face, until he remembered some things from his time in Wyoming.

"I've seen this guy before Indian Marvin Russell?" He turned to another agent. "Stan, have you ever seen this guy?"

"Nope."

O'Day looked over the rest of the faxes. Whoever he was, he was dead, with a slashed throat, the Denver cops said. "Probable drug-related killing' was the initial read from the Denver homicide guys. Well, that made sense, didn't it? John Russell had been part of a drug deal. The other initial data was that there had been other IDs at the scene of the crime, but that the licenses had been fakes - very good ones, the notes said. However, they had a truck registered to the victim, and also a car at the scene was a rental that had been signed out to Robert Friend, which was the name on the victim's license. The Denver P.D. was now looking for the vehicles, and wanted to know if the Bureau had anything useful on the victim and any likely associates.

"Get back to 'em, and tell 'em to fax us the photos from the other IDs they found."

"Yes, sir."

Pat watched the teams get onto the field for the kick-off, then lifted the phone. "Dan? Pat. You want to come on down here? I think an old friend of ours just might have turned up dead No, not that kind of friend."

Murray showed up just in time for the kickoff, which took precedence over the faxes. Minnesota got the ball out of the twenty-four-yard line, and their offense went to work. The network immediately had the screen covered with all sorts of useless information so that the fans couldn't see the players.

"This look like Marvin Russell to you?" Pat asked.

"Sure as hell does. Where is he?"

O'Day waved at the TV screen. "Would you believe Denver? They found him about ninety minutes ago with his throat cut. Local P.D. thinks it's drug-related."