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“Starting the night of Friday, the twenty-second, we have a Grumman Gulfstream standing by at Andrews Air Force Base. I borrowed it from Interior. The basic lab stuff will be on it. We stand by—me, you, Zeller, Jimmy Price, a photographer, and two people to do interrogations. Soon as the call comes in, we’re on our way. Anywhere in the East or South, we can be there in an hour and fifteen minutes.”

“What about the locals? They don’t have to cooperate. They won’t wait.”

“We’re blanketing the chiefs of police and sheriffs’ departments. Every one of them. We’re asking orders to be posted on the dispatchers’ consoles and the duty officers’ desks.”

Graham shook his head. “Balls. They’d never hold off. They couldn’t.”

“This is what we’re asking—it’s not so much. We’re asking that when a report comes in, the first officers at the scene go in and look. Medical personnel go in and make sure nobody’s left alive. They come back out. Road-blocks, interrogations, go on any way they like, but the scene, that’s sealed off until we get there. We drive up, you go in. You’re wired. You talk it out to us when you feel like it, don’t say anything when you don’t feel like it. Take as long as you want. Then we’ll come in.”

“The locals won’t wait.”

“Of course they won’t. They’ll send in some guys from Homicide. But the request will have some effect. It’ll cut down on traffic in there, and you’ll get it fresh.”

Fresh. Graham tilted his head back against his chair and stared at the ceiling.

“Of course,” Crawford said, “we’ve still got thirteen days before that weekend.”

“Aw, Jack.”

“‘Jack’ what?” Crawford said.

“You kill me, you really do.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Yes you do. What you’ve done, you’ve decided to use me for bait because you don’t have anything else. So before you pop the question, you pump me up about how bad next time will be. Not bad psychology. To use on a fucking idiot. What did you think I’d say? You worried I don’t have the onions for it since that with Lecter?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for wondering. We both know people it happened to. I don’t like walking around in a Kevlar vest with my butt puckered up. But hell, I’m in it now. We can’t go home as long as he’s loose.”

“I never doubted you’d do it.”

Graham saw that this was true. “It’s something more then, isn’t it?”

Crawford said nothing.

“No Molly. No way.”

“Jesus, Will, even I wouldn’t ask you that.”

Graham stared at him for a moment. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jack. You’ve decided to play ball with Freddy Lounds, haven’t you? You and little Freddy have cut a deal.”

Crawford frowned at a spot on his tie. He looked up at Graham. “You know yourself it’s the best way to bait him. The Tooth Fairy’s gonna watch the Tattler. What else have we got?”

“It has to be Lounds doing it?”

“He’s got the corner on the Tattler.”

“So I really bad-mouth the Tooth Fairy in the Tattler and then we give him a shot. You think it’s better than the mail drop? Don’t answer that, I know it is. Have you talked to Bloom about it?”

“Just in passing. We’ll both get together with him. And Lounds. We’ll run the mail drop on him at the same time.”

“What about the setup? I think we’ll have to give him a pretty good shot at it. Something open. Someplace where he can get close. I don’t think he’d snipe. He might fool me, but I can’t see him with a rifle.”

“We’ll have stillwatches on the high places.”

They were both thinking the same thing. Kevlar body armor would stop the Tooth Fairy’s nine-millimeter and his knife unless Graham got hit in the face. There was no way to protect him against a head shot if a hidden rifleman got the chance to fire.