I watched Wesley climb out and hurry away from flying blades. I recognized anger in his bearing and impatience in his stride. He was tall and straight and carried himself with a quiet power that made people afraid.

'Refueling will take about ten minutes,' he said when he got to us. 'Is there any coffee?'

'That sounds like a good idea,' I said. 'Marino, can we bring you some?'

'Nope.'

We left him and walked to a small lounge tucked between rest rooms.

'I'm sorry about this,' Wesley said softly to me.

'We have no choice.'

'He knows that, too. The timing is no accident.' He filled two Styrofoam cups. 'This is pretty strong.'

'The stronger the better. You look worn out.'

'I always look that way.'

'Are your children home for Christmas?'

'Yes. Everyone is there - except, of course, me.' He stared off for a moment. 'His games are escalating.'

'If it's Gault again, I agree.'

'I know it's him,' he said with an iron calm that belied his rage. Wesley hated Temple Brooks Gault. Wesley was incensed and bewildered by Gault's malignant genius.

The coffee was not very hot and we drank it fast.

Wesley made no show of our familiarity with each other except with his eyes, which I had learned to read quite well. He did not depend on words, and I had become skilled at listening to his silence.

'Come on,' he said, touching my elbow, and we caught up with Marino as he was heading out the door with our bags.

Our pilot was a member of the Bureau's Hostage Rescue Team, or HRT. In a black flight suit and watchful of what went on around him, he looked at us to acknowledge he was aware we existed. But he did not wave, smile or say a word as he opened the helicopter's doors. We ducked beneath blades, and I would forever associate the noise and wind caused by them with murder. Whenever Gault struck, it seemed, the FBI arrived in a maelstrom of beating air and gleaming metal and lifted me away. '