The next morning, the outlook was more promising.

Cho had called in a big favor to an old friend, and as a result, had secured a promise that the friend would provide him copies of Jonathan Russo's military records. He'd taken Rigsby with him to go pick them up from the local army base.

Van Pelt had set up a code script the night before to search tax and property records for Jonathan Russo and the Cut Iron companies, which had returned a number of promising results. She was now poring happily over tax records, convinced she would find the answers she needed there.

Lisbon, looking at the reams of paper that Van Pelt had churned out for her to review, seemed less optimistic. "I guess if we can't get him for murder, we can always take a leaf out of the FBI's book and nail him for tax fraud," she said gloomily. "That is, if we can prove these companies are all shell corporations run by the same individual."

"I may be able to give you a start on that," Jane said from his position on the couch, a cup of tea in one hand and a file balanced on his lap.

She looked over at him from where she was standing next to Van Pelt's desk. "How's that?"

He held up a piece of paper for her inspection. "Take a look."

She sat down next to him and looked at the paper he handed her. It had four names written on it in Jane's familiar hand. "Jay Rudolph, Ross Ferdinand, Jonathan Russo, and Roy Tagliaferro," she read aloud. She looked at Jane with a question in her eyes. "Obviously I see the connection between Russo and Tagliaferro, but how do the other two tie in?"

"They are the presidents and owners of Free Cloud Corporation and the Eisen Group, respectively," he informed her.

"You think Jay Rudolph and Ross Ferdinand are aliases for Red John, too?"

Jane took a sip of his tea. "I do."

"Based on what?"

"Ross and Russo share the same root, which means red. Ferdinand means 'daring journey' and also contains the letters 'r,' 'e,' and 'd.'"

Lisbon looked unconvinced. "And Jay Rudolph?"

Jane shrugged. "'Jay' for John. And Rudolph had a red nose."

"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer?" Lisbon repeated in disbelief. "That's a reach, even for you."

"I will bet you the cost of buying lunch for Rigsby for a month that I'm right," Jane said, unruffled.

She looked back at the list. "All four of them are listed as company president or owner?"

"Yup."

"No bet," she said reluctantly. She looked at Van Pelt. "Van Pelt, I need you to add two names to your search. Ross Ferdinand and Jay Rudolph."

"On it," Van Pelt said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

Lisbon stood up and stared at her murder board. "You know," she remarked to Jane. "There's something bothering me about this whole thing."

Jane took a sip of his tea. "What's that?"

"The timeline is off. We've figured out Russo was about nineteen when he joined the army, and probably twenty or twenty one when he committed that first murder. He must have been in the army about three or four years, and then he came back to the U.S. and killed Kellan Howard in 1986."

"What's your point?"

"We always thought his first murder was in 1998, with the help of Orville Tanner. From what we've learned, that was about the time he really started putting time into building his network of followers, too."

"So?"

"So, what the hell was he doing between 1986 and 1998? He's a serial killer. Usually serial killers have elements of an addictive personality—once they start killing, they don't take twelve year long hiatuses. They continue to murder in some kind of pattern, and usually escalate over time. It seems strange that he would commit two murders and then take a – what, almost like a leave of absence from killing for over ten years."

Jane frowned. "You're right."

"I think I have the answer to that," Van Pelt said from her desk.

"You do?" Lisbon said, surprised.

"Yeah, I've been looking through these records all morning, and it looks like these companies all got their start on military contracts overseas. If Russo was the leader of all the companies, he must have had to travel abroad a lot for business."

"That's how he got his start," Jane realized. "All this time we've been thinking his first kill wasn't until the late nineties, but that wasn't his first murder. Not even close. All those years abroad… he was practicing. Perfecting his methods so when he returned home he could feel confident that he would never leave any evidence that could be tied back to him."

Lisbon shook her head. "We would have heard about it if someone was drawing red smiley faces over murder sites all over the world. There's no way that would have stayed out of the press, I don't care how remote the places were."

"He must not have signed them," Jane said. "He was waiting until he was good enough to complete his masterpieces without worrying about being caught."

"He still made mistakes," Lisbon objected. "Bringing Tanner along on that first woman he killed here in California, and being surprised by Carter Peak on that murder he had to send Adelaide or Rebecca or whatever you want to call her to cover up all those years later when Bosco and his team were getting close."

Jane shrugged. "Precious few."

Rigsby entered then, carrying a box of files which he dumped onto Cho's desk with a grunt.

"Hey," Lisbon greeted him. "Where's Cho?"

"Grabbing a cup of coffee," he told her. He smirked. "He had a date last night and I don't think he got much sleep."

"Good for him," Lisbon said, thinking that it was a good thing at least one of them was managing to have a life.

Cho returned from the break room with a cup of coffee in one hand and a stack of envelopes in the other. "Mail's here," he announced.

"They're delivering the mail to the break room now?" Jane asked. "You CBI agents must be getting quite a bad reputation for slacking on the job if that's the first place they look for you."

Cho gave him a look. "I ran into the mail guy in the hall."

"Was it the hot one?" Jane asked, sipping his tea.

"The hot what?" Cho said blankly.

"The hot mail guy."

"There's a hot mail guy?" Rigsby asked.

"Lisbon says there is," Jane said.

"What?" Lisbon said, startled. "I never said that."

"Sure you did."

"When did I say that?" she demanded.

"A couple of years ago," Jane said, busying himself with his tea.

"I did not," she said indignantly.

"Don't deny it now, Lisbon. This could be the perfect time for you to make your move on what's his name from the mail room."

"Antonio," she supplied automatically.

"Exactly. It could be Antonio's lucky day."

Lisbon shook her head. "Antonio doesn't work here anymore."

"Pity," Jane said, not troubling to infuse his voice with anything remotely resembling sincerity.

Cho looked at them. "Do you want the mail or not?"

Lisbon held out her hand and Cho handed her the stack of envelopes. She sat down next to Jane again, flipping through the stack disinterestedly. Jane idly reflected that the sensation of her warm arm brushing against his was quite pleasant. When she paused on a plain white envelope with no return address, he felt her go tense beside him. "Jane," she said, her voice tight. "This one's for you."

"That's not good," Jane remarked. He never received mail at the CBI, and the last time he had, it had contained a threat to Lisbon's life. He set down his tea and took the envelope from Lisbon. He opened it, and drew out a note on heavy cream cardstock. He went very still as he read it, and heard Lisbon's sharp intake of breath as she read it over his shoulder.

Cho was watching their faces. "What does it say?"

Jane read the note aloud. "It says, 'Dear Mr. Jane- Since you have robbed me of my first choice of lamb, you have forced me to take another in its place. Unless you are willing to trade your pet lamb for mine, I'm afraid the one currently in my possession will have to serve as my intended sacrifice. The choice is yours." Jane held up the single sheet of paper for the team to see, displaying the red smiley face printed on the note in lieu of a signature, but no one on the team needed to see the familiar smiley face to know it was from Red John.

"Oh, my God," Van Pelt said, horrified.

They all looked at Lisbon, who looked as though she'd been sucker punched.

Rigsby swallowed. "That note can't mean what I think it means, right?"

"What do you think it means?" Jane asked.

"That Red John is asking you to trade the boss's life to save someone else."

"In that case, I'm afraid it means exactly what you think it means."

"Who could it be?" Van Pelt asked. "Who could be the second lamb?"

Jane shook his head. "I don't know. Whoever it is, though, it sounds like Red John already has them."

Lisbon made a sudden motion, and then jumped up. "Jason. It has to be Jason. He's young and innocent. Red John is punishing him for failing to kill me."

She didn't wait for a response, but grabbed the phone from Van Pelt's desk and punched in a number. "Hello, this is Agent Teresa Lisbon with the California Bureau of Investigation." She rattled off her badge number. "I have reason to believe one of your witnesses' location has been compromised and that the witness is in very serious danger. Can you please get me a twenty on witness ID 579-834-9981?"

Rigsby looked impressed. "She has the witness ID memorized?"

"She had to fill out a lot of paperwork to get him in the program," Van Pelt informed him.

"Yes, I'll hold," Lisbon was saying. She covered the mouthpiece and addressed Rigsby. "Rigs, can you run that down to the lab and ask them to run it for prints? You'll have to cross-check the records with the staff from the mailroom."

"Sure," Rigsby said, sounding unenthusiastic. Like the rest of them, he seemed to think it unlikely that they would actually find any useful prints on the card. He got up and took the note from Jane, preparing to head downstairs.

"Hey." Lisbon grabbed his sleeve as he went past. "I know it's a pain, but we've got to try, right?"

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "He's gotta make a mistake one of these days, right?"

She gave him a weak smile. "Right."

Rigsby left.

Van Pelt looked up at Lisbon. "What now?"

"We have to find him," Lisbon said. "We have to figure out where he's taken him. So for the time being, that means we keep working the case, just like we have been. Top priority is figuring out a location with ties to Red John and tracking down a photograph we can use to ID him and release to the media outlets. Van Pelt, you stay on the property and tax records. Jane, you help her. Cho, you stay on the military records just in case something pops there." She tapped her foot impatiently, her knuckles white on the telephone receiver. "Come on," she muttered. "What's taking so damn long?"

Jane was frowning. "This doesn't make any sense."

"It's Red John," Cho said. "Nothing he does ever makes any sense."

"On the contrary," Jane said. "Everything he does is highly rational. Every move he makes is perfectly calculated."

"So then what do you think doesn't make sense about what he's doing now?"

"He's asking me to trade Lisbon for another 'lamb,'" Jane said, using air quotes around the word 'lamb.'

"So he's messing with you as usual," Cho said.

Jane shook his head. "No. He has to know I would never willingly give Lisbon up. He knows I'm too selfish for that. Let's say the lamb is Jason. Why would I give Lisbon up to save the life of someone who was poisoning her? For all he knows, I would say he can do whatever he wants to the kid who almost took Lisbon away from me, and welcome to it."

"What makes you think you have a say in it at all?" Lisbon demanded. "I'm the one being offered up as some kind of prize."

"The note's addressed to me, Lisbon," he pointed out. "He wants me to be the one to take action. What I don't understand is why he would think I care two figs about what happens to Jason, or go out of my way to protect him."

"I'm not letting Jason die just because he was foolish enough to have a crush on me," Lisbon snapped.

Jane was silent for a moment, trying to figure out Red John's move here. Why would Red John think that he would lift a finger to save Jason? There had to be something they were missing.

The person on the other end of the line came back on the phone and Lisbon snapped to attention. "Yes… yes… when will that be?" She listened for their response. "All right. Thank you. Please let me know as soon as you know anything more."

She hung up. "They've dispatched a couple of marshals to check on Jason and his family," she informed Cho, Jane, and Van Pelt. "They're going to call me as soon as they know more."

She ran her hand through her hair, looking frustrated and upset. Jane's heart clenched in his chest, thinking just how very dear she was to him, standing there fretting over Jason's fate. How could Red John think there was anything in the world he wouldn't gladly sacrifice to keep her with him?

Aloud, he said, "Unfortunately, I don't think there's much we can do until Red John sends his next message."

"What makes you think he's going to send another message?" Cho asked.

"He asked me to trade in Lisbon for someone else. How am I supposed to do that without knowing where and when the trade is supposed to happen?"

"Maybe it would be better if you set something up yourself. Then you can fake him out."

Jane shook his head. "Won't work. He's going to want to control the time and location of the trade, I'm sure of it."

"You make me sound like a used car," Lisbon grumbled.

Jane ignored this. "The point is, there's no way to come up with a plan until he provides the time and location. Everything hinges on that. It's quite clever of him, really. He's hoping I'll panic about the threat to Lisbon and be so distracted by fear that I won't be able to come up with a decent plan to outsmart him."

"You seem pretty calm now," Lisbon said, sounding a bit put out.

Jane shrugged. "He made a mistake in warning me of his intentions. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have kidnapped you in the dead of night or on the way home from the grocery store. Now that he's given me fair warning, my course of action is clear."

"What's that?" Lisbon asked with trepidation.

"Not let you out of my sight for the foreseeable future," Jane said, as though this were the most reasonable thing in the world.

Lisbon looked more horrified by this suggestion than she had by the prospect of being taken by Red John.

"You really think it's going to be that simple?" Cho said skeptically.

"It's exactly that simple," Jane said. "No doubt he'll have some clever plan designed to separate us—all I have to do is figure out how to prevent that from happening and stick to Lisbon like glue."

"Great," Lisbon muttered. "Something to look forward to."

She was giving every indication that she was not wild about the idea of going along with his plan for her personal protection. That meant her cooperation would not be guaranteed. Jane considered lifting Cho's handcuffs and shackling himself to her. He'd have to throw the key out the window to ensure she had no way of freeing herself from him.

After some consideration, he discarded this idea. If Red John decided to incapacitate him temporarily, his dead weight would inhibit her ability to protect herself and escape. Shame. It could have been fun, being chained to Lisbon.

"So in the meantime, we just keep working the leads we have?" Van Pelt inquired.

"Yes," Lisbon said. "That's the plan."

They all returned to their tasks, but there was a sense of urgency that hadn't been there before. Van Pelt attacked her research with a fervor Jane had never seen from her before. Even Cho looked tense as he continued his search through the military files. Lisbon was helping Van Pelt. Jane was busy trying to figure out Red John's next move. Whatever it was, it was going to be pretty bad.

Rigsby returned.

"Any luck?" Lisbon asked him.

He shook his head. "Guess today wasn't the day for Red John to make a mistake," he said ruefully. "No prints, no DNA."

Lisbon sighed. "Well, thanks for trying."

"So what's happening now?" Rigsby asked, looking around at the rest of the team.

"We're following any lead we have that might give us an address," Van Pelt informed him. "I'm going through property records now."

"I can help you with that," Rigsby offered.

"Great." Van Pelt nodded to a pile of papers on the corner of her desk. "You can start with those."

"'Kay." He checked his watch. "I've got to call Consuela first, though. Check on Ben."

Van Pelt gestured for him to do what he needed to do and returned to her perusal of the search results.

The phone on her desk rang but Lisbon snatched it up before Van Pelt could answer. "Hello? Yes, this is Agent Lisbon. Yes… yes…" She sighed. "Yes, I'll hold."

She leaned against Van Pelt's desk and watched Rigsby pick up his desk phone to call his home number, cursing the person who invented the horrible hold music that phone companies always used.

Rigsby held the receiver to his ear, frowning as he listened to the phone ring on the other end. Finally, the machine picked up. "Consuela, hi, it's Wayne, just calling to check in. Please call me back as soon as you get this."

One of the marshals from the team assigned to Jason's family finally came on the other end of the line and told Lisbon Jason and his family had been located and transferred to a secure location. "Thank God," she said. "Listen, keep a few extra agents on them, will you? The situation is critical."

Rigsby hung up, still frowning.

"Right," Lisbon responded to a question the marshal had asked her. "I don't know how, but there's every possibility the man trying to hurt Jason has gotten a line on his location, so keep everyone on high alert for the time being, okay? Thanks."

She ended the call. "Jason and his family are safe," Lisbon announced. The relief in her voice was palpable. "The marshals made it to them in time."

Jane frowned. "That doesn't make sense."

"What do you mean?"

"Red John said I forced him to take another in your place. Past tense. That implies that the lamb was already in his possession when we received the note."

"But he sent it by mail, so he had to have put in the mail yesterday at the latest," Lisbon pointed out. "He might have planned to have his lamb by the time we received the note, but something could have gone wrong. He may have had a harder time tracking down Jason than he anticipated, now that he's in protective custody."

"Maybe," Jane said doubtfully.

"I'm sure that's what happened," Lisbon said. "I'm just glad the marshals were able to get to Jason and his family so fast. We were lucky." She frowned. "Unless he has an insider within Witness Protection, too."

"That's certainly a possibility," Jane said. "Lots of law enforcement agents are ex-military. Now that we know he has a military background, there could have been any number of avenues for him to recruit additional followers through those connections."

Rigsby was on the phone again. He left another message, his expression growing anxious as he hung up for the second time.

Van Pelt looked up from her research. "Everything all right?"

"Consuela's not answering the phone," Rigsby said with a frown.

"Maybe she took Ben out," Van Pelt suggested.

"She's not answering her cell, either."

"She might have stepped away from it," Van Pelt said reassuringly.

Rigsby shook his head. "No. I always call at this time. She knows to keep her phone on her." He looked at Lisbon.

"Go," she said immediately. "Make sure Ben's all right."

He exhaled with relief. "Thanks, boss," he said gratefully. "I'm sure it's nothing. Just want to be sure, you know?"

"Of course," Lisbon agreed. She watched him pick up his cell phone and head for the elevator and the hackles rose on the back of her neck. A terrible sense of foreboding sank into her stomach.

No. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

Van Pelt stood to pick up a file on the edge of the desk and Lisbon caught her arm. "Grace," she said urgently. "Go with him."

Van Pelt's eyes widened. "You think-?" she said, horrified.

Lisbon shook her head, praying with all her might that she was being ridiculous and paranoid. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

Van Pelt swallowed. "All right." She looked after Rigsby's retreating figure. "Wayne," she called, hurrying after him. "Wait up."

He nodded, his jaw tight.

Lisbon was useless with anxiety for the next twenty minutes. Jane and Cho picked up her mood, and it must be admitted that very little progress was made by any of them during that time. The bullpen was thick with tension as Lisbon paced the room, unable to settle to any real task.

Finally, her phone rang. She fumbled in her haste to pull it out of her pocket. "Lisbon," she said without looking at the display.

It was Grace. "Boss, it's him," she said soberly. "It's Red John. He was here. He took Ben."