The Maze

loose to the media. Also, even if he does find out, he'd really have to be crazy to come after her."

    "Maybe, but I just don't know. Big John will leak it to the media, count on it. I will too. But you're right, it's got to be Sherlock's decision. But you already know the answer, don't you, Savich?"

    "Oh yes."

    "The media are out in force, thicker than fleas on a one-eared dock rat," Jimmy Maitland said, blew his nose, then stuffed the handkerchief back into his coat pocket. He drew away from the window in the twenty-third-floor office of Big John Bullock. He wasn't happy with all this, but he knew that with the leak, there was no way in hell Marlin Jones didn't know about Sherlock being here in Boston. He wouldn't be surprised if Sherlock had called the media. She really wanted Marlin Jones, badly.

    Buzz O'Farrell, the SAC of the Boston Bureau office, was just shaking his head. "It amazes me how they don't just send one reporter, no, it's four dozen with eight dozen mikes, enough cameras to film World War II, and everybody screaming. I wanted to shoot that damned judge, but the media? A nice deadly virus just might be the answer for them."

    "They ain't got no manners, that's for sure," Savich said, grinning down at Sherlock, who looked both stoic and furious, an interesting combination he would have liked to explore with her in private. Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be an option this morning.

    "Big John leaked it," Jimmy Maitland said, "we didn't. Actually, we'd decided to keep our noses clean. And yes, we know he leaked it. He's still counting on coming out smelling like a rose in all this and that's why he did it."

    "If he hadn't, then I probably would have," Lacey said. "Sorry, sir, but there it is. Anything to give us another shot at Marlin Jones."

    "Well, good morning to all you good law enforcement representatives," Big John Bullock said, walking into the immense walnut-paneled conference room in his law offices. He homed in immediately on Sherlock. "Good to see you again," he said.

    She smiled at him. "I must say you're looking a bit more fit than the last time I saw you. Marlin sure did a number on your head, didn't he?"

    "Poor boy, he was frantic to get out of that torture chamber. Shall we get down to business now?"

    "That's fine with us," Savich said, all calm and cool, in that FBI voice of his.

    "Do tell us exactly what you want," Georgina Simms, the attorney for the Justice Department said, sitting forward. "This is on the unusual side. But we certainly want to cooperate all we can."

    "Well, I really wanted to know what Agent Sherlock has to say about all her unethical behavior in the case to date."

    Savich rose. He walked slowly up to Big John and said not two inches from his face, "Agent Sherlock doesn't have anything to say. Now, if you can't come up with something worth our while, then we're out of here. You heard Ms. Simms. We've got a murderer to catch. Maybe you think it's funny that at least eight women were brutally murdered and a doctor is hanging on for his life as we speak, but we don't."

    Big John sobered immediately, nodding to the stenographer to begin as he sat down and opened a thick file. "All right, then. Agent Sherlock, here's the problem you've created for the state. Your sister is one of the women allegedly killed by my client. Is this true?"

    "Yes."

    "So the reason you became an FBI agent was to get in on the inside so you'd have a better chance of catching him?"

    "Yes, initially."

    "Was it your idea, your plan, that resulted in the capture of Marlin Jones?"

    "It was a plan developed by the local BPD and the FBI. It was also a plan approved by the local BPD and the FBI. I was merely the bait."

    "Why?"

    "Because I knew his profile very well. I knew better than any other female officer or agent exactly how to play him, how to work him. I was simple bait, Mr. Bullock. All he had to do was ignore me. There was no entrapment."

    "That will be up to the judge, won't it?"

    Georgina Simms, said, her voice easy and slow, "This is all a waste of time, Mr. Bullock. If you have a point, make it now or we're leaving."

    "My point is, just exactly how did you know how to 'play' Marlin Jones so well, Agent Sherlock?"

    She didn't pause. She saw Dillon tense up, then consciously relax. He was worried. Well, she wasn't. She'd thought about this a whole lot. "I've studied everything about the killer for the past seven years, Mr. Bullock. I felt that I knew him. He cut out