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  Peggy swallowed and realized she was still holding onto her gun. She holstered it, watching Robyn Muro go back into Mrs. Gotopolis's bedroom. From inside she heard Robyn talking calmly to the woman about how everything was going to be fine now. She looked in to see Robyn undoing the woman's bonds. The penis had already been ripped from the ceiling thread and Robyn had put it out of sight.

  She telephoned Thorpe for the sixth time, but this time she determined to let it ring and to actually speak with the FBI woman. Jack Harris, the Chicago FBI agent who'd died along with Swisher, had been a friend of Robyn's as well. It had been through Harris that she had learned so much about the iron lady, Thorpe. She wondered how Thorpe would react to her calling.

  "Muro, it really is you," she said when she came on.

  "Have you had any further leads in the Ovierto matter?"

  "Not much. Why are you asking?"

  "Curious."

  "I see."

  "What about Elena Hogarth?"

  "Safe for the time being"

  "You have her then?"

  "That's right."

  "I read about a body found in a mine shaft in Denver. One of yours?"

  "The rest of Bateman. A policewoman led us to him after some convalescence. She met with Ovierto out there on a routine call."

  "And she came out alive?"

  "Blind for life, scarred for life... but alive, yeah."

  "Son of a bitch."

  "My sentiments exactly. Oh, by the way, I understand congratulations are in order in the Stavros case."

  "I called-"

  "Yeah?"

  "I want in. I want Ovierto."

  "Good... good."

  "Good?"

  "Great. We can use your help."

  "It doesn't change how I feel about you."

  There was a moment's silence before Thorpe said, "I understand that. I don't have too many people I can call friend, unlike you."

  Robyn swallowed hard. Lately, she didn't have too many friends either. "I'll need help squaring it with Noone."

  "Leave your captain to me."

  "All right, manipulation seems to be your specialty.”

  “Can you be ready to leave at a moment's notice?”

  “Where to?"

  "Seattle. Ovierto is on the scent again and this time we're not going to lose."

  "You want me to baby sit Hogarth?”

  “She's got a sitter. I want a shooter. You're the best, so I've heard.”

  “I’ll be ready"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The call came in the middle of her restless sleep. It was a male voice, very dry and to the point. "Be at O'Hare Airport, ready to proceed to Seattle, Washington via private jet. Look for hangar nine at the Flying Tigers terminal. You'll have to get a car to take you across the tarmac."

  "Will Thorpe be there?"

  "She will see you in Seattle."

  "Who is this?"

  "Dr. Samuel Boas."

  "Boas?"

  "On my way to Seattle from Washington."

  "I’ll be there in an hour."

  Robyn rushed to dress, and in a little over an hour she was finding a seat on the empty jet. Behind her came a tough-looking man of perhaps fifty-eight or fifty-nine. He held a black briefcase, and when she said hello he merely groaned and took a seat, fastening his belt. He paid her no further mind.

  The jet taxied out and took off like a kite. Below her Chicago looked like a field of jewels. She tried to go back to sleep and was almost dozing off when the elderly, thin man shook her. "No time for that now," he said. "Here are the photos and information you require, Officer Muro."

  "Who are you?"

  "FBI coroner out of Quantico... Boas, Sam Boas, remember? I thought you were briefed on this?"

  "No... I mean, not about you. What are we looking at here?"

  "Apples," he said enigmatically

  She squinted. "Apples?"

  "These are three Adam's apples that that butcher sent into HQ in Nebraska, to Thorpe. He killed three people in the Seattle area just in order to send Inspector Thorpe some Washington State apples. Sick bastard."

  "He's telling her he knows where Hogarth is being held."

  "Exactly. Telling her he intends to get her at any cost, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it."

  She stared anew at the photo of the large jar of formaldehyde in which bobbed the Adam's apples. She felt a sudden rush of nausea at the sight, failing the test, she supposed. She tried to cover it with talk. "When did..."

  "Three-ten yesterday, UPS from Seattle." He mercifully put them away.

  "Where is Hogarth being kept?"

  "She and her family are to be relocated. That's your job, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, I suppose it is. How large a family is it?"

  "Here." He spread out a display of pictures of the Ho- garths in various homey scenes. Mr. Hogarth was a tall, dark man with angular features, while the child was pudgy and round-faced, looking more like her mother about the eyes. Robyn guessed her age at seven or eight.

  "Cute as a button, isn't she?" asked Boas. "You know what Ovierto would do with that button?"

  "Unimaginable."

  "Think the unthinkable if you want to understand this maniac," he said.

  "There is nothing he is incapable of, is there?"

  "Absolutely nothing."

  "How long has he menaced Thorpe?"

  "Six years... or it will be soon. The first two was taken up by her and Sykes tracking him down, and she was almost killed when he turned on her. He escaped from those idiots in Houston while she was still healing in a hospital there. It's a wonder he didn't kill her in her hospital bed, because he left a momento beside her bed, a pair of eyes he had ripped from a guard. Ever since then, he has taunted her. It's like having an evil personal demon who torments you. It's driving her crazy."

  "I can imagine." But she really couldn't imagine.

  He gave her some additional files to study. Most of it she had already seen, duplicate information she'd had from Swisher's cache of files. Dr. Boas went back to his seat and slept the rest of the way to Seattle. She, too, caught up on her sleep, but it was fitful.

  When the plane landed, they were met with an entourage of Seattle FBI agents. She was told that Thorpe wanted to see her and Boas. They were taken to the Hilton in downtown Seattle. Boas was quiet the entire way, except to say, "I am getting old for this... too old."

  "Why are you here all the way from D.C.?" she asked.

  "Because I am the best, and Thorpe needs me."

  "You have some loyalty to her?"

  "I know of no agent who has worked so hard to bring in a man. Yes, yes... you might say I have some loyalty to her... yes."

  They arrived amid the bustling, busy downtown traffic at midmorning, going for the suite where Thorpe was staying. They'd been instructed to use a rental car, no limos, which had upset Boas to no end. And here they were meeting Thorpe not at the Seattle FBI Bureau but at the shining, gleaming, sleek, steel-and-glass Hilton, where an enormous fountain greeted them.

  Upstairs in Thorpe's suite they found a fully working, functional setup, with officers and computers hard at work. Thorpe had obviously gotten someone in Washington on her side, Robyn thought, impressed with the hardware assembled here. Thorpe cautiously offered her hand, and Robyn took it with equal caution.

  "After our last meeting, I wasn't sure you'd come."

  "What's going on here?" asked Robyn, ignoring Thorpe's remark.

  "We're linked with every system in the city and every breaking event and arrest down to a simple bust on the street. We're electronically watching for any sign of Maurice Ovierto. We also have on file here every known loony in the city and we're cross-referencing with people Ovierto has known in the past."

  "That's something I wanted to talk to you about, Ovierto's past. Just where did he come from? What created this kind of a maniac?"

  "Very little is known of his childhood and upbringing, but what we have is here, and
it is open for your perusal, along with anything else we have."

  "You can find no direct connection between him and these scientists he is bent on killing?"

  "Only a guess at best."

  "What guess?"

  "All of the people he has killed have been valuable to their governments and to a joint venture between these governments."

  "And what venture is that?"

  "It has to do with space technology."

  "Space technology?" She thought of Fermilab. "Physics?"

  "Astro physics, yes. I know very little of the details of the... the venture myself. It matters little. What matters is that this maniac has determined that no peaceful, joint efforts on the part of our various governments will take place, so long as he is alive. I think he just has set himself up as the destroyer of peace on this planet."

  "But he was once in medicine—"

  "A surgeon."

  "He was never involved in this venture with NASA?"

  "Only in his mind."

  "Meaning?"

  "He learned of it from one of his early victims. He believes that if he can frighten us enough we'll turn over all the data on the project to him. He believes it will give him the power to rule the Earth."

  "Would it?"

  Thorpe laughed. "It is a project aimed at the peaceful application of astromedicine, that is all."

  "What's the name of this project?"

  "I'm not at liberty to discuss any such details with you."

  "Ohhhhh, partners to the end."

  "I'm not your partner in this. I'm your superior, and if you can't accept the fact that there is some information too sensitive to pass along to you, then you'd best get back on a plane for Chicago."

  Robyn considered doing exactly that for a moment be-fore saying, "No...no, I'm in for the long haul."

  "Are you sure he hasn't left Seattle?" asked Boas, who'd only just returned from a bit of catching up with some old friends and colleagues in the Seattle area. "He's done it before, creating big red herrings, sending us all to Cleveland or to Upstate New York only to find it was for nothing."

  "He's here," said Thorpe.

  "How can you be sure? Those apples? He could still be-"

  "I know," she said firmly.

  "You've concentrated on former associates in the city?"

  "Asylum types he has known."

  "How do you know who they are?" asked Robyn, curious.

  Thorpe took her to a computer terminal and pressed a few buttons asking for a cross-reference on anyone known to have ever associated with Dr. Maurice Ovierto living in Seattle. There were six names on the list.

  "Remember the poor slob he roped into his net in Chicago, the guy that was riddled with bullets who was happy to stand in for the great and powerful Dr. Ovierto?"

  "So, you're having these people watched?"

  One of the names appeared to be a woman, Lynn Janklow.

  "We have watched them day and night."

  "You seem to know more about this creep than any-one."

  "It's like keeping tabs on Satan."

  "Where's Hogarth and her family being kept?"

  "Before we move on that, are you sure? Sure you want in?"

  "Yes."

  "Ovierto would like nothing better than to have you tied on a slab somewhere, under his scalpel, do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "He's more than cruel—"

  "I know what he is."

  "—and a woman as... as beautiful as you... well."

  Robyn blushed a bit before saying, "Dr. Boas has al-ready tried dissuading me. You don't have to go on."

  "It's just that with you," her hand came up almost im-perceptibly, "Ovierto would see to it that your death was long and torturous. He... he has a fetish about stretch-ing pain and torture to the limits of human endurance, especially with pretty women."

  "He's apparently done exactly that with you... for what? Six years?"

  Thorpe's lower lip trembled and their eyes met.

  "Somewhere, I'm sure I'm in his computer."

  "His computer?"

  "He keeps a computer record of various effects that his different techniques bring about... various forms of torture on anyone he has... mutilated."

  Robyn sensed for the first time the depth of the mutilation to her psyche that Thorpe had endured.

  She clasped Robyn's hand, depositing something into her fist. She thought it was a key, but looked down at a vinyl packet with two pills inside. "Cyanide," said Thorpe. "You may need them."

  Robyn was shown a place where she could freshen up, make any calls she wished, and catch up on the jet lag, while Thorpe and the others made preparations to move the Hogarths from danger. Whatever those plans were, Robyn had not as yet been told, and she was getting increasingly nervous about the part she was expected to play. Was she here to be another drone for Thorpe? That was not the way she intended to operate.

  She went for the door to find a phone. She didn't trust that the one offered her by Thorpe was bug-free. Downstairs, in the lobby, she found several pay phones and called Precinct thirty-one in Chicago. She got through to Peggy Olson.

  "Robyn, it's you. What's going on around here?"

  "What do you mean, Peg? Peg?"

  "Captain Noone's put out an All Points for any calls coming in from you. Wants to speak to you. It's like all hell's broke loose here."

  "Noone? What? Suddenly he can't do without me?"

  "I think it's a little more than that, Rob."

  "Jesus, what could he want?"

  "I don't know. Only he knows. Want to bite the bullet?"

  "May as well, things here are kinda slow for the moment."

  "Patching you through, and kid, be careful around those FBI creeps."

  "Gotcha—" but Peggy was off.

  Noone came on all bluster. "All right, Sergeant, I hope you're pleased with yourself."

  "Sir?"

  "The files, Muro... the stolen ones, the ones Joe Swisher was supposed to have hidden in some hole somewhere, were found in your safety deposit box."

  "What? How, who gave authorization to go into my—"

  "You're dealing with the fucking G-men, Sergeant. What'd you expect?"

  She thanked God that she had brought the papers from Oliguerri's desk with her. They hadn't left her bra. Anyone wanting them would have to kill her for them. "They found what they wanted then."

  "Real swift, that Thorpe. She invites you out West and moves in on you here. You're swimming with sharks, kid."

  "So I'm learning."

  "But taking those records, that was stupid, Muro. They could charge you with theft, obstruction of—"

  "I think Thorpe has bigger plans for me than that."

  Noone was silent for a moment. "Robyn, why don't you come back home. You're needed here. Let them take care of that whacko, Ovierto."

  "No, Cap, I'm in it for now."

  "Watch your backside, girl."

  "Thanks, Captain, for the concern."

  "They think you've got something else belongs to them."

  She played dumb. "Oh?"

  "Something out of Oliguerri's lab... some papers."

  "I wasn't in there long enough to—"

  "To have a drink of water?"

  He knew... they knew. The papers she had taken from the lab must be important and were likely the reason Thorpe had invited her in. What was so important about them? The figures, the equations, the words themselves, which were in his Nigerian tongue? "I took the files because they were in Joe's place. That's all I took, Captain."

  "You wouldn't lie to me, would you, kid?"

  "No more than you would lie to me, sir."

  This silenced him again. She took the opportunity to say, "Look, I've got to go. I'll check in when I can."

  "Do that... do that."

  When she hung up the phone, she wasn't sure who she could trust any longer. And she wasn't sure how long she could hold onto the notes from Oliguerri.

  "There you ar
e," said Thorpe, who was suddenly be-side her. "It's time to go. I've had Walter take your things to the car at the rear of the hotel. It's time to move out."

  Who was Walter, she wondered —her best trained sniffer? Had he gone through her bags before taking them to the car? "Thank you... very thoughtful of you," she said, accompanying Thorpe. "Listen, Inspector Thorpe, don't you think it would be best if we could try to trust one another, since we are going to be working together?"

  "But I do trust you, Sergeant."

  "Not quite enough. I understand your people looted my safety deposit box in Chicago."

  "I wasn't aware that the Chicago Bureau had taken such steps." She stopped, staring at her, giving Robyn the benefit of an "ah, ha!" glance. "So, it was you who made off with the files I'd left in Swisher's care."

  "Don't give me that. You knew all along. You knew it when you invited me in that night at the airport."

  She half smiled at Robyn. "You're very smart, Robyn —as smart as you are beautiful. So, you know what we're really looking for. Why don't you tell me where it is?"

  "All I took were the files."

  Thorpe dropped her gaze, considering this. "All right... all right, then that would mean that our fiend, Dr. Ovierto, has what we want. That information could make him even more dangerous than he already is."

  "What information is it, and how does it make him more dangerous?"

  "Sorry-"

  "Oh, shit! You're sorry... you can't tell me... top fuckin' secret, is it? Having to do with this God Project you were talking about upstairs?"

  "Pythagoras is not my concern! Ovierto is!"

  "That's the name of the project?"

  "Forget it. Concentrate on Ovierto, damnit."

  "Be a good soldier, huh... just do my duty, like you do yours, and let other people make the moral choices?"

  "Don't talk to me about morals. Morals... what good are they when you're hunting a demon?"

  "If you don't hold onto your morals then you become the demon."

  "Nice speech, Sergeant, but give it a rest! Please! After you see the results of this Devil's work, and then you imagine a potent weapon capable of destroying whole populations falling into his hands... then you tell me about morals."

  Walter honked the horn just outside the rear door as the two strong-willed women bared their teeth at one another. Finally, Thorpe said, "I wasn't always an Inspector... wasn't always an FBI agent, but I have always been a woman, Robyn, and I'm telling you woman-to-woman that there is only one objective here, and that is to see Ovierto to his grave any way we can. Now with this document which you most certainly have tucked away somewhere... possibly on your person... we might lure the bastard to us, and when he gets close enough to two such women as we are, he will not live to move away from us. Is that clear?"