From his belt he took his own walkie-talkie-more expensive than the Marshals' and, unlike theirs, sensibly equipped with a three-level-encryption scrambler-and spoke to Zane, his partner, upstairs, the one so proficient with automatic weapons. "He's dead. I've got the snap. Get out."

"On my way," Zane replied.

Haarte glanced at his watch. If the other marshal had gone to get food-which he probably had, since it was dinnertime-he could be back in six or seven minutes. That's how much time it took to walk to the restaurant closest to the hotel, order take-out, and return. He obviously hadn't gone to the restaurant in the hotel because they would just have ordered room service.

Haarte walked slowly down the four flights of stairs and outside into the warm spring evening. He checked the streets. Nearly deserted. No sirens. No flashing lights of silent roll-ups.

His earphone crackled. Haarte's partner said, "I'm in the car. Back at the Hilton in thirty."

"See you then."

Haarte got into their second rental car and drove out of downtown to a park in University City, a pleasant suburb west of the city.

He pulled up beside a maroon Lincoln Continental.

Overhead a jet, making its approach to Lambert Field, roared past.

Haarte got out of the car and walked to the Lincoln. He got in the backseat, checking out the driver, kept his hand in his pocket around the grip of the now-unsilenced pistol. The man sitting in the rear of the car, a heavy, jowly man of about 60, gave a faint nod, his eyes aimed toward the front seat, meaning: The driver's okay; you don't have to worry.

Haarte didn't care what the man's eyes said. Haarte worried all the time. He'd worried when he'd been a cop in the toughest precinct of Newark, New Jersey. He'd worried as a soldier in the Dominican Republic. He'd worried as a mercenary in Zaire and Burma. He'd come to believe that worry was a kind of drug. One that kept you alive.