First Daughter

"I was," she said faintly.

"Have you thought about how to get yourself out of this prison?" Jack said to Armitage.

Alli's guts were churning. "That was the man who took me from Langley Fields," she persisted.

Jack turned to her. "You don't say?"

Alli's expression was stricken. "I… I'm sorry. I know I should've told you sooner."

"I'm curious why you didn't." Jack knew it was crucial to keep any admonition out of his voice. He could see the terror shimmering in the faint sweat on her face.

Alli put her head down. "I was keeping Emma's secret. I thought if I said one thing, it would lead to the rest."

"But then you told me about Emma wanting to join E-Two. You could've told me about Ro

Alli wedged her hands beneath her thighs, her arms as straight as boards. "He said if I told anyone about him, he'd come after me and kill me."

"How would he know?"

Alli was crying again; she simply couldn't stop. "I don't know, but he knew everything about me, right down to what I did with a boyfriend, my doctors, what hospital I was born in."

Jack wanted to take her in his arms, but he intuited this was the wrong time, the wrong place. He'd read that victims of abduction or rape often react negatively to being touched, even when that's what they really want.

Alli panted as if she'd just finished a hundred-meter sprint. Emma, she thought wildly, please help me be strong. Then, with a start, she realized that she had Jack. In many of the important ways, Jack and Emma were alike, which was why she trusted him as much as she did, why she could talk to him on some level about her very private dread. "He's in my dreams. He's always there."

Jack felt his stomach contract. "What does he say? What does he want?"

She sobbed. "I can't remember." A tremor went through her like an earthquake. "Whatever he wanted, you got to me first-you saved me."

He could see how terrified Alli was of this man. How could she not be? He had held her entire life in his hands. Suddenly, he had a vivid mental image of the photos taken of her with a telephoto lens that had hung in the Marmoset's house, especially the one of her and Emma walking across the Langley Fields campus.

How, he asked himself, had Ro

In the back of Jack's mind, his oddly aligned synapses had been playing with the 3-D puzzle he was assembling in his head. Now the puzzle turned in a different direction, and he saw the shape of a missing piece.

"Alli," he said with his heart pounding in his chest, "do you recognize the name Ian Brady?"

"Sure." She nodded. "He and his partner, Myra Hindley, were responsible for what were known as the Moors murders. They went on a two-year killing spree from, I think, sixty-three to sixty-five."

Ka-thunk! Jack could hear the missing piece fall into place. Proof that the man who abducted Alli, who killed her Secret Service detail, was the same man who, twenty-five years ago, had murdered the two u

Jack had gone after the wrong man; Cyril Tolkan had been responsible for many crimes, but murdering Gus wasn't one of them. So how clever was Kray/Whitman/Brady to have used a hand-honed paletta to kill, knowing full well that it would lead investigators to the wrong man?

Come to think of it, didn't this serial killer use the same MO now, twenty-five years later? He'd left clues to lead investigators to FASR and E-2 and away from himself. Everyone had taken the bait-except Jack, whose mind was already hard at work fitting pieces of the puzzle together. At first, it simply hadn't felt right, and then, little by little, as more pieces of the puzzle appeared for him to manipulate like a Rubik's Cube, he had started to gain an inkling of his quarry.

Now he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: This man was his personal nemesis. Kray had played him for a fool once; Jack would track him down this time, or die trying.

At that moment, his cell phone buzzed. He'd set it on vibrate before they'd left the house. He was getting a text message, just three letters: WRU. It was from Nina, but what the hell? Jack never texted, had no idea of shortcuts.

He showed the phone's screen to Alli. "What does this mean?"

" 'Where are you?' " Alli looked at him. "She needs to see you."

Jack thought a minute. Having slipped the Secret Service detail, it wouldn't do to show up at a meet with Nina with Alli in tow, and he certainly wasn't going to drop her off at the house, SS detail or no SS detail. They'd blown their coverage once; he couldn't afford to take the chance they'd do it again.

What location could he give Nina that wouldn't seem suspicious? He was about to ask Alli to text Nina back, but then reconsidered. It was odd for Nina to be texting him, rather than phoning. Given the specter of the Dark Car, Jack wasn't in any frame of mind to take a chance. He logged on to the Web, called up Google Maps. He already had several saved. Choosing the one he wanted, he sent it to Nina. It wouldn't show up as anything useful to potential eavesdroppers.

"Okay, we gotta go." He and Alli rose. "For the time being, sit tight. You have enough food for a week?"

"I think so, yeah." Armitage crouched down, opened the half fridge. "Plus, when the Coke and juice run out, we've got plenty of water." He glanced up. "But that's really all academic, isn't it? The minute the people who run this place return in the morning, we'll be screwed."

"No, you won't. I know them." Jack still owned the building; because he charged his tenants way under the going rate, they'd do anything for him. "Trust me, they won't bother you." Jack shook Armitage's hand. "I'll get you out of this, Chris."

Armitage nodded, but he looked less than sure.

FORTY — ONE

JACK'S FIRST choice would have been Egon, but who knew where he was at this hour. Jack wasn't about to call the house to find out. That left him but one other option, so he took Alli to Sharon's.

He wanted to call her to warn her, but at this point, he was afraid to use his cell phone. Instead, he stopped at a drug superstore, bought a burner-a cheap cell phone with a pay-as-you-go plan. After setting it up, he dialed Sharon's number.

As soon as he heard her voice, he said, "I need to come over. Is it okay?"

"After what happened the last time?"

"It was just an argument. Don't make a big deal over it."

"Big deal? Jack, don't you understand? Emma was the central argument of our life together."

She was right, of course, but he didn't have time to get into it with her. "Listen to what I'm saying, Shar. I need your help. Now."

There was a slight hesitation. "Is everything all right?"

"Not quite."

"What's going on?" A different quality in her voice. The saber had been sheathed, the charger's hooves stilled. "You're scaring me."

"We'll be there in fifteen."

"We? Jack, who are you with?"

"Not on the phone," he said, and disco

He got into the Continental and took off.

PARANOIA RUNNING at peak level, Jack checked out Sharon's neighborhood within an eight-block radius. That seemed excessive, even to him, especially since he could think of no reason why Sharon should be under surveillance. But since he still didn't know who had sicced the Dark Car on him-or even why-the more thorough he was in his security check, the better he'd feel.

Having ascertained there was no surveillance in the area, he pulled into Sharon's driveway. Alli hadn't said a word since she'd translated the text message from Nina for him.