First Daughter

As if from the wrong end of an amplifier, he heard her call to him. He wanted to answer her, but the fear of Kray/Whitman being in the house kept him silent.

Nina's renewed banging on the front door caused him to jump, but that was hardly the source of his fright. He passed into the foyer, reached out and opened the door to let her in. A quick negative shake of his head let her know he hadn't found anyone, but he led her silently to the photos in the hallway.

With his left hand, he indicated that she should check the second floor. He went room by room: the cobwebby basement, smelling of raw concrete and damp, the living room with its astounding volcanoes of books, magazines, papers of all kinds. The bathroom was clear, as was the kitchen. It was curious, though. The living room and foyer were just as he remembered them, cluttered and musty, but the kitchen and bathroom were neat and spotless, shining like a scientist's laboratory. It was as if two completely different people inhabited the same place: the ghost of the Marmoset and Kray/Whitman.

To the left, he found a closed door. Trying the knob, he ascertained that it was locked. His picks were of no help here. The lock was of a kind he hadn't encountered before. He stood back, aimed, then shielded his eyes as he fired the Glock at it. The resulting percussion brought Nina at a dead run.

He kicked in the door, found a room with only a huge painted wood chair. At one time, probably when the Marmoset had lived here, the room had had a window. Since then it had been bricked up and painted over. It reeked sourly of sweat, fear, and human excrement.

The two of them returned to the hallway, went down it until they found themselves back in the cheerful kitchen.

"Check everything," Jack said.

They opened closets, drawers, cabinets. All the utensils, bottles, cans, mops, brooms, dustpans were arranged in order of utility and size. The oven was empty inside. Nina pulled open the door to the refrigerator.

"Look here."

She knelt in front of the open refrigerator. All the shelves had been removed. She pointed to the bottom, where something translucent was wedged between sections.

"I think that's a piece of skin."

Jack nodded, his heart thudding in his throat. "Let's bag it, get it over to Dr. Schiltz. I have a feeling it belongs to our Jane Doe who had her hand amputated."

Nina do

As she produced a plastic bag and tweezers, Jack moved to the pantry door. It was closed but not latched. Gingerly, he pulled it open.

He expelled a long sigh of relief. The First Daughter was wedged into a corner, her back against the far wall where it met a set of cabinets. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her shins. She was rocking gently back and forth, as if to comfort herself.

Jack squatted down to Alli's level.

"Alli?" He had to call her name three or four times before her head swung around, her eyes focused on him. By this time, Jack could hear Nina speaking to HQ. She was asking for an ambulance, the Carson family doctor, who was standing by at Langley Fields, and an armed escort. She had initially asked for Hugh Garner, but for some reason Jack couldn't make out, wasn't able to speak with him.

"No sirens," Jack said softly, and Nina relayed the message.

Jack edged closer, and Alli shrank back. "Alli, it's Jack, Jack Mc-Clure. Emma's father. Do you remember me?"

Alli regarded him out of depthless eyes. She hadn't stopped rocking, and Jack couldn't help thinking of the room with the monstrous chair, the straps, the smell.

"Don't be afraid, Alli. Nina and I were sent by your father and mother. We're here to take you home."

Something in what he said put the spark of life into her eyes. "Jack?"

"Yes, Alli. Jack McClure."

Alli suddenly stopped rocking. "Is it really you?"

Jack nodded. He held out one hand until Alli reached out, tentatively took it. He was prepared for her to draw back, but instead she launched herself into his arms, sobbing and shaking, holding on to him with a desperation that plucked at his heart.

He rose with her in his arms. She was trembling all over. Nina moved in beside him. She was opening the drawers in the cabinet, one by one. All were empty, save the top one, which held an assortment of the usual handiwork tools: hammer, level, pliers, wire-cutter, a variety of screwdrivers and wrenches.

Alli began to whimper again, and Jack put one hand at the back of her head in an attempt to calm her. With the other, he fumbled out his cell phone, pressed a button. A moment later, president-elect Edward Carson came on the line.

"Sir, I have your daughter. Alli is safe and sound."

There was a brief rustle at the other end of the line that could have been anything, even Carson brushing away some tears. "Thank God." His voice was clotted with emotion. Then Jack heard him relay the news to his wife, heard her shout of relief and joy.

"Jack," Carson said, "Lyn and I don't know how to thank you. Can we speak with her?"

"I wouldn't advise it, sir. We need to extract her fully and assess her health."

"When can we see her?"

"The ambulance is on its way," Jack said. "You can meet us at Bethesda."

"We're on our way," the president-elect said. "Jack, you made good on your promise. Neither Lyn nor I will forget it."

At the same moment Jack put away his cell, Nina opened the cupboard over the small sink. Nina recoiled when she saw the horned viper slither down onto the countertop. The evil-looking wedge-shaped head with its demon's horns quested upward. The viper was hungry, and she was a

Jack dug the pliers out of the drawer. The head moved forward, far faster than he could follow, but midway toward him a shadow fell across it, slowing it. Jack felt a breath of cool air brush the nape of his neck. With a well-aimed swipe of the pliers, he stu

Nina struggled to regain her equilibrium. "Jack, are you all right?"

Unable to find his voice, he nodded.

"It was coming straight at you; I was sure it would bite you."

"It would have," Jack said, a little dazed himself, "but something slowed it down."

"That's impossible."

"Nevertheless, something did. A shadow came between the snake and me."

Nina looked around. "What shadow, Jack?" She passed her hand through the space Jack indicated. "There's no shadow here, Jack. None at all."

Alli twisted in his arms, taking her face out of his shoulder. "What happened?" she whispered.

Jack kicked the snake's body away. "Nothing, Alli. Everything's fine."

"No, it isn't, something happened," she insisted.

"I'm taking you out of here, Alli," he whispered as he took her back out through the kitchen and down the hall. "Your folks are coming to meet us."

The Marmoset's house was crawling with the heavily armed detail Nina requested. Along with them came two EMS attendants with a rolling stretcher, a nurse, and the Carson family doctor. But Alli refused to be parted from Jack, so he and Alli, with Nina at their side, strode out of the house with the escort.

Alli put her lips to his ear. "I felt something, Jack, like someone standing beside us."

"You must have blacked out for a minute," Jack said.

"No, I felt someone breathe-one cool breath on my cheek."

Jack felt his heart lurch. Could it be that Alli had felt the shadow, just as he had? His mind lit up with possibilities.

He climbed into the ambulance with her clinging to him. Even when he managed to get her onto the stretcher so that the doctor could examine her, she wouldn't let him go entirely. She was clearly terrified he'd leave her alone with her living nightmare.