The Devils Teardrop

was using us to get him. The Digger took him out first though.”
    So, it’s been amateur night, she thought. Kincaid, the mayor. Czisman.
    “What about Hardy?”
    Cage told her that the young detective had made a one-man assault on the bus the Digger’d holed up in. “He got pretty close and had good firing position. Might’ve been his shots that hit the Digger. Nobody could tell what was going on.”
    “So he didn’t shoot himself in the foot?” Lukas asked.
    Cage said, “I’ll tell you, it looked like he was hell-bent on killing himself but when it came right down to it he backed off and went for cover. Guess he decided to stick around for a few years.”
    Just like me, Lukas the changeling thought.
    “Is Evans there?” Cage asked.
    Lukas looked around. Surprised that the doctor wasn’t here. Funny . . . She’d thought he was coming down to the lobby to meet her. “I’m not sure where he is,” sheanswered. “Must be upstairs still. In the document lab. Or maybe the Crisis Center.”
    “Find him and give him the good news. Tell him thanks. And tell him to submit a big bill.”
    “Will do. And I’ll call Tobe too.”
    “Parker and I’re gonna do crime scene with PERT then head back over there in forty-five minutes or so.”
    When she hung up the dep director said, “I’m going down to the Mall. Who’s in charge?”
    She nearly said, Parker Kincaid. But caught herself. “Special Agent Cage. He’s near the Vietnam Memorial with PERT.”
    “There’ll have to be a press conference. I’ll give the director a heads-up. He may want to make a statement too . . . Say, you miss a party tonight, Lukas?”
    “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