Jeffery Deaver - The Devil's Teardrop

"That's the thing about holidays, sir. There'll always be one next year," She laughed. "Maybe we ought to make up T-shirts with that saying on them."

He smiled stiffly. Then asked, "How's our whistle-blower doing? Any more threats?"

"Moss? I haven't checked on him lately," she said. "But I definitely have to."

"You think there's a problem?" The dep director frowned.

"Oh, no. But he owes me a beer."

In the deserted document lab Dr. John Evans folded up his cell phone. He clicked the TV set off.

So they'd killed the Digger.

The news reports were sporadic but as best Evans could tell there'd been minimal fatalities-not like the Metro shooting and not like the yacht. Still, from the TV images, Constitution Avenue looked like a war zone. Smoke, a hundred emergency vehicles, people hiding behind cars, trees, bushes.

Evans pulled on his bulky parka and walked to the corner of the lab. He slipped the heavy thermos into his knapsack, slung it over his shoulder then pushed through the double doors and started down the dim corridor.

The Digger… What a fascinating creature. One of the few people in the world who really was, as he'd told the agents, profile-proof.

At the elevator he paused, looked at the building directory, trying to orient himself. There was a map. He studied it. FBI headquarters was much more complicated than he'd imagined.

His finger hovered over the DOWN button but before he could push it a voice called, "Hi." He turned. Saw somebody walking toward him from the second bank of elevators.

"Hi, there, Doctor," the voice called again. "You heard?"

It was that young detective. Len Hardy. His overcoat was no longer perfectly pressed. It was stained and sooty. There was a cut on his cheek.

Evans pushed the DOWN button. Twice. Impatient. "Just saw it on the news," he told Hardy. He shrugged the backpack off his shoulder. The doctor grunted as he caught the bag in the crook of his arm and began to unzip it.

Hardy glanced absently at the stained backpack. He said, "Man, I'll tell you, I spoke a little too fast there, volunteering to go after that guy. I went a little crazy. Some kind of battlefield hysteria."

"Uh-huh," Evans said. He reached inside the backpack and took out the thermos.

Hardy continued, chatting away. "He nearly nailed me. Shook me up some. I was maybe thirty feet from him. Saw his eyes, saw the muzzle of his gun. Man… I was suddenly real happy to be alive."

"That happens," Evans said. Where the hell was the elevator?

Hardy glanced at the silver metal cylinder. "Say, you know where Agent Lukas is?" the detective asked, looking up the dark corridor.

"I think she's downstairs," Evans said, unscrewing the lid to the thermos. "She had to brief somebody. The lobby on Ninth. Didn't you just come that way?"

"I came in through the garage."

The doctor pulled the top off the thermos. "You know, Detective, the way you told everybody about the Diggers and Levelers? You made it sound like you didn't trust me." He turned toward Hardy.

Evans looked down. He saw the black, silenced pistol Hardy was pointing at his face.

"Trust didn't have anything to do with it," Hardy said.

Evans dropped the thermos. Coffee splashed onto the floor. He saw the flash of yellow light from the muzzle of the gun. And that was all he saw.

The agent was young enough to still be thrilled at the idea of being an FBI employee. So he didn't mind one bit that he'd been assigned the midnight-to-8 shift New Year's Eve in the Bureau's Security Center on the third floor of headquarters.

There was also the fact that Louise, the agent he was working with, wore a tight blue blouse and short black skirt and was flirting with him.

Definitely flirting, he decided.

Well, okay, she was talking about her cat. But the body language told him it was flirting. And her bra was black and visible through the blouse. Which was a message too.

The agent continued to gaze at the ten TV monitors that were his responsibility. Louise, on his left, had another ten. They were linked to more than sixty security cameras located in and around headquarters. The scenes on the monitors changed every five seconds as the cameras sequenced.

Louise of the black bra was nodding absently as he talked about his parents' place on the Chesapeake Bay. The intercom brayed.

It couldn't have been Sam or Ralph-the two agents he and Louise had replaced a half hour ago; they had total-clearance entry cards and would've just walked inside.

The agent hit the intercom button. "Yes?"

"It's Detective Hardy. District P.D."

"Who's Hardy?" the agent asked Louise.

She shrugged and went back to her monitors.

"Yes?"

The voice crackled, "I'm working with Margaret Lukas."

"Oh, on the Metro shooter case?"

"Right."

The legendary Margaret Lukas. The security agent hadn't been with the Bureau very long but even he knew that Lukas would someday be the first woman director of the FBI. The tech pushed the ENTER button, spun around to face the door.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm afraid I'm lost," Hardy said.

"Happens around here." He smiled. "Where you headed?"

"I'm trying to find the document lab. I got lost on the way to get some coffee."

"Documents? That's the seventh floor. Turn left. Can't miss it."

"Thanks."

"What's this?" Louise said suddenly. "Hey, what is this?"

The agent glanced at her as she hit a button to stop the video camera scan and pointed to one of the monitors. It showed a man lying on his back not far from where they were now, on this floor. The monitors were black and white but a large pool of what was obviously blood ran from his head.

"Oh, Christ," she muttered and reached for the phone. "It looks like Ralph."

From behind them came a soft thunk. Louise gave a sudden jerk and grunted as the front of her blouse disappeared in a mist of blood.

"Oh," she gasped. "What-?"

Another pop. The bullet struck the back of her head and she pitched forward.

The young agent turned toward the doorway, lifting his hands, crying, "No, no."

In a calm voice Hardy said, "Relax."

"Please!"

"Relax," he repeated. "I just have a few questions."

"Don't kill me. Please-"

"Now," Hardy asked matter-of-factly, "your computers're running SecureChek software?"

"I-"

"I'll let you live if you tell me everything I ask."

"Yes." He started crying. "SecureChek."

"What version?"

"Six oh."

"And if you don't log in at regular intervals a Code Forty-two goes out over the Inter-Gov System?"

"That's right… Oh, look, mister." He glanced at the body of the woman beside him, which twitched twice. Blood flowed into the control panel. "Oh, God…"

Speaking slowly, Hardy asked, "You started your shift at midnight?"

"Please, I… "

"Midnight?" he repeated, a schoolteacher coaching a child.

The agent nodded.

"What was your first log-in time?"

He was crying hard now. "Twelve twenty-one."

"When's the next time you have to log in?"

"One-oh-seven."

Hardy glanced at the clock on the wall. He nodded.

Panic in his voice, the young agent continued. "On holidays we use a pattern of increasing intervals, so after the second log-in we-"

"That's all right," Hardy reassured the agent then shot him twice in the head and pushed the button to release the door.