Special Agent Tanner gestured to Commissioner Hartley. He should proceed.

"Agent Hanaczeski, we're looking into a pattern of...discrepancies."

"Discrepancies, sir?"

"A departmental audit has revealed that certain evidence in past cases associated with your regional office has gone missing between the disposition of the court cases and final disposal of the evidence. Mainly drugs and money. Some small, valuable items as well...diamonds, gold jewelry, expensive watches, and so forth. Do you have any knowledge of this?"

"Perhaps I should contact an attorney, sir."

"No, no. You misunderstand. You are not being questioned, nor are you suspected of any wrongdoing. We simply wanted to know whether you'd heard anything about it."

"Nothing."

"That's fine then. As a matter of fact, you're pretty much eliminated from suspicion, since the evidence that's gone missing began to disappear long before you were ever assigned here. It began five or six years ago."

"That excludes Ashe, of course--since he's here, I'd imagine you've come to the same conclusion."

"That's correct. Naturally, that also excludes Agent Juan Torres."

"Leaving Joel Ambrose, Dale Jubason, and Sasq--I mean Larry Johnson."

"Yes. Now--without going into the particulars of our investigation so far, we've excluded Joel Ambrose and Larry Johnson. They are no longer suspects in this matter. However, since they have been working closely with the target for ten years, we prefer that they are not aware of our investigation as it progresses."

"Your target being Dale Jubason."

"Yes."

"May I ask a question?"

"Yes."

"Why wasn't--my apologies, Ashe--the SAC in this office aware of these discrepancies?"

"The disappearances occurred between the time that your SAC had custody in your evidence lockers, and the time that the evidence was relinquished to the central office evidence holding facility. He never had knowledge of the disappearances, since his books balanced. The losses occurred when the evidence was transferred."

"So you believe Agent Jubason is responsible for these thefts?"

"Strongly."

"How is he doing it--if he is doing it?"

"We don't know."

"That's where we need your help, Agent Hanaczeski." FBI's Tanner. His dark eyes seemed to scrutinize Susan carefully--even a bit brazenly. "We need someone who knows Jubason, who works closely with him, and who has a reason to be around him to monitor the target's movements and activities very carefully, watching for any suspicious activity. Any outside person might alert Jubason to the fact that someone was watching him."

"So I'm supposed to investigate one of my partners at the same time that I'm conducting investigations of drug trafficking."

"You're not alone," said Miller--emphatically Detective Sergeant Miller of Internal Affairs, Susan remembered. Some men are married to their titles.

"Meaning?"

"We've recruited Agent Juan Torres as well."

Perhaps that explained why Juan had been so silent and uncommunicative at the drunken "Debriefing" the other night.

"Does Juan know that I know that he is investigating Juba?"

"He will."

Another thought occurred to Susan.

"Ashe," she said, turning to him, "is it an accident that Juba and Juan have been assigned with me to investigate Prince and the Pauper--I mean, the Ronald and Donald case--Snake and Crow?"

"No, it's not an accident."

"We've been waiting for a case like this to come up," said Tanner. "There is a strong likelihood that the case will produce large quantities of drugs or money. We'd like it to proceed to its conclusion, and then follow the money and drugs after it's taken into evidence."

"I suppose," said Susan, "that you'd like it to go as far as possible to up the stakes. After all, a few ounces of cocaine and a few thousand dollars might produce a strong conviction, but won't give you the amounts you want to tempt your target into stealing."

"That would be optimal, yes."

"You know that stringing these things out only increases the likelihood that something will go bad on us, don't you?"

"We know. Obviously, we don't want to make things more dangerous for you, but at the same time...."

Susan nodded. She crafted her expression to mirror their expectations that she was thinking about the implications of what they'd told her.

Instead, her inner eye turned to the expression in her assailant's eyes in the parking lot outside the Four Aces, when he felt the death Susan had given him with her hands--an expression incised in her memory as if chiseled there. He hadn't seen it coming.