Washington, D.C.

Maggie O’Dell’s heels clicked on the cheap linoleum, announcing her arrival. But the brightly lit hallway—more a whitewashed, concrete tunnel than a hallway—appeared to be empty. There were no voices, no noises coming from behind the closed doors she passed. The security guard on the main floor had recognized her before she displayed her badge. He had waved her through and smiled when she said “Thanks, Joe,” not noticing that she had to glance at his name tag to do so.

She slowed to check her watch. Still another two hours before sunrise. Her boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham, had gotten her out of bed with his phone call. Nothing unusual about that. As an FBI agent she was used to phones ringing in the middle of the night. And there was nothing unusual about the fact that he hadn’t awakened her with his call. All he had interrupted was her routine tossing and turning. She’d been awakened once again by nightmares. There were enough bloodied images, enough gut-wrenching experiences in her memory bank to haunt her subconscious for years. Just the thought clenched her teeth, and only now did she realize she had developed a walk that included hands fisted at her sides. She shook the fists open, flexing her fingers as if scolding them for betraying her.

What had been unusual about Cunningham’s phone call was his strained and distressed voice. Just one of the reasons for Maggie’s tension. The man defined the term cool and collected. She had worked with him for almost nine years, and couldn’t remember ever hearing his voice being anything other than level, calm, clipped and to the point. Even when he had reprimanded her. However, this morning Maggie could swear she had heard a quiver, a twinge of emotion too close to the surface, obstructing his throat. It was enough to unnerve her. If Cunningham was upset about this case, then it had to be bad. Really bad.

He had filled her in on the few details he knew, still too early for specifics. There had been a standoff between the ATF and FBI and a group of men holed up in a cabin somewhere in Massachusetts on the Neponset River. Three agents had been wounded, one fatally. Five suspects in the cabin were dead. One lone survivor had been taken into federal custody and sent to Boston. Intelligence had not nailed down, yet, who the young men were, what group they belonged to or why they had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons, fired on agents and then taken their own lives.

While dozens of agents and Justice Department officials combed the woods and the cabin for answers to those questions, Cunningham had been asked to start a criminal analysis of the suspects. He had sent Maggie’s partner, Special Agent R.J. Tully, to the scene and Maggie—because of her forensics and premed background—had been sent here into the city morgue where the dead—five young men and one agent—were waiting to tell their tale.

As she came to the open door at the end of the hall, she could see them. The black body bags lined up on steel tables one after another, looking like a macabre art exhibit. It almost looked too strange to be real, but then, wasn’t that the way so many recent events in her life had been? Some days it was difficult to distinguish what was real and what was simply one of those routine nightmares.

Maggie was surprised to find Stan Wenhoff gowned up and waiting for her. Usually Stan left the early morning call-ins to his competent and able assistants.

“Good morning, Stan.”

“Humph.” He grunted his familiar greeting as he kept his back to her and held up slides to the fluorescent light.

He would pretend the urgency and stature of this case weren’t the reason he had crawled out of bed to be here, when his normal method would have been to call one of his assistants. It wasn’t that Stan would want to make certain everything was carried out by the book as much as he wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to be the point man for the media. Most pathologists and medical examiners Maggie knew were quiet, solemn, sometimes reclusive. However, Stan Wenhoff, the chief medical examiner for the District, loved being in the limelight and in front of a TV camera.

“You’re late,” he grumbled, this time glancing over at her.

“I got here as quickly as I could.”

“Humph,” he repeated, his fat, stubby fingers rattling the slides back into their container to signal his discontent.

Maggie ignored him, took off her jacket and helped herself to the linen closet, knowing there would be no invitation issued. She wanted to tell Stan that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be here.

Maggie looped the plastic apron’s strings around her waist. She found herself wondering how much of her life had been dictated by killers, getting her out of bed in the middle of the night to hunt them down in moonlit woods, along churning black rivers, through pastures of sandburs or fields of corn? She realized that this time, she might actually be the lucky one. Unlike Agent Tully’s, at least this morning her feet would be warm and dry.

By the time she returned from the linen closet, Stan had unzipped their first customer and was peeling back the bag, careful that any contents—including liquid contents—didn’t fall or run out. Maggie was startled by how young the boy looked, his gray face smooth, having never yet experienced a razor. He couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Certainly not old enough to drink or vote. Probably not old enough to own a car or even have a driver’s license. But old enough to know how to obtain and use a semiautomatic rifle.

He looked peaceful. No blood, no gashes, no abrasions—not a single mark that explained his death.

“I thought Cunningham told me they committed suicide? I don’t see any gunshot wounds.”

Stan grabbed a plastic bag off the counter behind him. He handed it to her across the boy’s body.

“The one who survived spit his out. I’m guessing arsenic or cyanide. Probably cyanide. Seventy-five milligrams of potassium cyanide would do the trick. Eat through the stomach lining in no time.”

The bag held one ordinary red-and-white capsule. Maggie could easily see the manufacturer’s name stamped on the side. Though intended to be an over-the-counter headache medication, someone had replaced the contents, using the capsule as a convenient container.

“So they were well prepared for suicide.”

“Yeah, I’d say so. Where the hell do kids come up with these ideas today?”

But Maggie had a feeling it hadn’t been the boys’ idea. Someone else had convinced them they could not be taken alive. Someone who amassed arsenals, concocted homemade death pills and didn’t hesitate to sacrifice young lives. Someone much more dangerous than these boys.

“Can we check the others before you start the autopsies?”

Maggie made it sound like a casual request. She wanted to see if all the boys were Caucasian, supporting her initial hunch that they might belong to a white supremacist group. Stan didn’t seem to mind her request. Maybe he was curious to get a look himself.

He started unzipping the next bag and pointed a stubby finger at Maggie.

“Please put your goggles down first. They’re not doing you any good on top of your head.”

She hated the suffocating things, but she knew Stan was a stickler for rules. She obeyed and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She glanced at the bag Stan had opened as she unzipped the one in front of her. Another blond-haired Caucasian boy slept peacefully as Stan pushed the black nylon material down around his face. Then she looked at the bag her fingers were peeling open. She didn’t get very far when she stopped. She snapped back her hands as though she had been stung.

“Oh Jesus!” Maggie stared at the man’s gray face. The perfectly round bullet hole was small and black against his white forehead. She could hear the sloshing of liquid behind his head; liquid that she had disturbed but that still remained captured inside the bag.

“What?” Stan’s voice startled her as he leaned over the body, trying to see what had upset her. “It must be the agent. They said there was one dead.” He sounded impatient.

Maggie stepped back. A cold sweat washed over her body. Suddenly she grabbed onto the counter, unsure of her knees. Now Stan was staring at her, concern replacing impatience.

“I know him” was the only explanation she could manage before she took off for the sink.