Where is she?”

Candy Landis asked this question as if she actually expected an answer.

Her husband, Jack, stood against the big floor-to-ceiling corner window she had specially built to give him views of both the River Walk and the Alamo. She thought he looked handsome standing there, his full head of hair still black, his back straight, his tummy hanging just slightly over his belt.

Charles Whiting cleared his throat and started again. “She left her New York apartment in the company of a tall, heavyset male Caucasian and entered the back of a black limousine with opaque windows.”

“Opaque? What’s opaque?” Jack asked.

“You can’t see through them, dear,” Candy Landis said.

“Opaque,” Jack Landis repeated to himself. “Go ahead.”

“The limousine proceeded to La Guardia Airport, where Miss Paget exited the vehicle in the company of the same male Caucasian. The subject then proceeded to a first-class counter at American Airlines-”

“What subject?”

“Miss Paget.”

“So what’s the subject?” Jack Landis asked. “Geometry… history? Are we back in junior high or something?”

“That’s an FBI phrase,” Candy explained. “Isn’t that an FBI phrase, Chuck?”

“It’s a general law-enforcement term, Mrs. Landis.”

“So then what did the subject do?” Jack Landis asked as he watched a young lady with legs longer than a deer’s stroll along the sidewalk.

Charles Whiting cleared his throat again. In his years with the bureau, he’d had occasion to brief the director several times and hadn’t been interrupted like this. But then again, Charles cut a distinguished figure. At fifty-four, his six foot three inches were still taut and ramrod-straight. Even under his gray suit, his shoulders showed the effects of his fifty daily push-ups. There was just enough gray on his temples to give him an air of experience, and his blue eyes were clear and firm.