"You don't like being here, do you, John?" Dr. Donald Smythe said, digging with his little finger for another yellow nugget of earwax.

"I like it fine," Lockwood lied. His sinuses were killing him. He was allergic to something that was blooming in the Washington, D. C., swamp. The room was too cold; the doctor was fat. John Lockwood was being forced to submit to a second psychiatric reevaluation in a year, as part of the U. S. Customs Service's most recent Internal Affairs investigation of him, and he couldn't help himself-he resented it. Lockwood was an Assistant U. S. Customs Special Agent in Charge for the Southern District. He was also something of a legend in the Service. He made spectacular arrests which always got Federal indictments, but he had been investigated five times in the last eighteen months for various forms of improper conduct. He had yet to be found guilty of anything, but the intensity of the assault from IA was growing. Each failed attempt to discipline him had made the investigators more vindictive.

They had insisted he go "stress related" until this psychological exam was complete. He suspected he might have another beef coming, because two days before, in a frustrated moment, he had slugged an Internal Affairs SAC named Victor "Brute" Kulack in South Beach, Miami. It had been a stupid thing to do and Lockwood regretted it immediately, but the argument and a seething anger had escalated so fast he couldn't control it. He was becoming more and more puzzled by his own behavior. It was undermining him with his superiors. But more important, it was altering his opinion of himself. He was no longer certain of what he stood for.