The Devils Teardrop

had shed the trench coat, revealing a white polyester shirt with thin brown stripes and razor-crease slacks and a brown tie. Despite lying in a Northern Virginia field for an hour his marine-officer hair was still perfectly in place and there was not a bit of dirt on him. He looked less like a detective than a clean-cut Jehovah’s Witness about to offer you some brochures on salvation. Lukas, who wore a new Glock 10, thought the thin Smith &Wesson .38 revolver on Hardy’s hip was positively quaint.
    “You doing okay, Detective?” Lukas asked him, seeing his disgruntled expression as Cage swept the phone out from under his nose.
    “Right as rain,” he muttered, not too sardonically.
    She gave a faint laugh at the expression, which she knew was an indigenous Midwestern phrase. She asked if he was from there.
    “I grew up outside Chicago. Downstate. Well, that’s what they call it—even though my hometown was northwest of the city.”
    He sat down. Her smile faded. Right as rain . . .
    Cage hung up. “Got your deets. That was Firearms. Gun was an Uzi. About a year old and there was a lot of barrel spread. That weapon’s seen some serious action. Mineral cotton in the silencer. Hand packed, it looked like. Not commercial. The shooter knows what he’s doing.”
    “Good!” Lukas said. She called to C. P. Ardell, across the room, “Have somebody check out Web sites that give instructions for homemade silencers and converting Uzis to full auto. I want e-mail addresses of recent hits.”
    “Do they have to give up that info?” C. P. asked.
    “Not without a warrant. But make ’em think they do. Be persuasive. ”
    The agent made a call and spoke for a few minutes. He reported, “Com-Tech is on it.” The Bureau’s crack computer and communications unit, headquartered in Maryland.
    To Cage, Lukas said, “Hey, got an idea.”
    The agent lifted an eyebrow.
    She continued. “What we can do is get that guy, from Human Resources?”
    “Who?” Cage asked.
    Lukas continued. “That guy who examines applicants’ handwriting and writes up their personality.”
    “The District does that too,” Len Hardy said. “It’s supposed to weed out the wackos.”
    “Whatta you mean?” C. P. asked Lukas. “We already sent it to Quantico.”
    The big agent was referring to a copy of the note that had been sent to the Bureau’s Behavioral section for psycholinguistic profiling. Tobe Geller sat at a computer terminal nearby, waiting for the results.
    “No, no, that’s to link him to similar MOs and profile his education and intelligence,” Lukas said. “I’m talking about profiling his personality. Graphoanalysis.”
    “Don’t bother,” a voice from behind them said.
    Lukas turned and saw a man in jeans and a leather bomber jacket. He walked into the lab. He wore a visitor’s badge around his neck and was carrying a large attaché case. It took a moment to recognize him.
    Cage began to speak but stopped himself. Maybe afraid that he’d scare him off.
    “Artie let me up,” Parker Kincaid said. The Bureau’s employee entrance night guard. “He still remembers me. After all these years.”
    This was a very different image of Kincaid, Lukas thought. He’d seemed frumpy at his house. It hadn’t helped that he’d been wearing some god-awful sweater and baggy slacks. The gray crew-neck sweater he wore now, over a black shirt, seemed much more him .
    “Mr. Kincaid,” Lukas said, nodding a greeting. “Don’t bother with what?”
    “Graphoanalysis. You can’t analyze personality from handwriting.”
    She was put off by his peremptory tone. “I thought a lot of people do it.”
    “People read tarot cards too and talk to their dear departed. It’s bogus.”
    “I’ve heard it can be helpful,” she persisted.
    “Waste of time,” he said matter-of-factly. “We’ll concentrate on other things.”
    “Well. All right.” Lukas pledged that she’d try not to dislike him too much.
    Cage said, “Hey, Parker, you know Tobe Geller? Doubling as our computer and communications man tonight. We tracked him down on his way to a ski trip in Vermont.”
    “It was New Hampshire,” the trim agent corrected, offering Kincaid one of his ready grins. “For holiday pay I’ll do anything. Even break a date. Hi, Parker. I heard about you.”
    They shook hands.
    Cage nodded to another desk. “This’s C. P. Ardell. He’s from the D.C. field office. Nobody knows what C. P. stands for but that’s what he goes by.