MARRIOTT HOTEL,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Doggett was impressed by the view from the window of his hotel room, which looked out over the inner harbor and the USS Constellation, reputedly the only Civil War-era ship still afloat. It was unusual for the FBI to pay for field agents to stay in such swanky rooms and he only regretted that he and Monica would be too busy to fully enjoy them. Her room was the one Darryl Johnson had stayed in, but a cursory examination had thrown up no clues. Monica had taken possession of a pile of hotel security tapes from the day Johnson had disappeared and would be viewing them in her room. In the meantime, she was off somewhere interviewing hotel staff. That left him the task of reporting to Woodrow Billings at the local field office and following up on the Vincent Clay hit, which suited him just fine. This way Monica wouldn't have to deal with Billings and could focus on finding her doppelganger, while he had a down-to-earth killing to investigate and so didn't need to be doing with magic medallions or other such nonsense.

In the basement of the Marriott, Monica Reyes was checking a hunch. She had noticed the laundry chute in the corridor outside her room and, knowing it was not always just laundry that got thrown down the chutes, wondered if anything unusual had made its way down this one on the day in question.

"Yes ma'am," said Ernesto Suarez, the laundry supervisor, leading her over to a locked cupboard. "In a hotel this big we get strange things coming down the chutes pretty much every day. Where possible, we return these to their owners, but that still leaves a lot that never gets claimed."

He opened the cupboard and Reyes sighed. This had seemed like a good idea but now she wasn't so sure. There were items in the cupboard ranging from shoes to spectacles, from toys to vibrators (some of which were fancier models than her own, she idly noted). Among the toys were a large number of dolls, including one full-size, particularly life-like one of a baby, and several Teddy bears. The spectacles looked promising, so she carefully scooped them into a hotel carrier bag. If Darryl Johnson wore glasses it was possible they were among these. It was worth checking, anyway. Bag in hand, Reyes headed back to her room. She had a lot of videotape to work her way through.

""""""""""""

FBI OFFICE,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

"Would you send in Agent Doggett now, May?" said the voice on the intercom.

"He'll see you now, Agent Doggett," said May, her expression suggesting less than warm feelings towards her boss.

"Good to see you, John," said Billings, in a particularly nasal Boston accent, rising from his desk and putting his hand out as Doggett entered. They shook, Billings taking the concept of a firm handshake too far and exerting near bone-breaking pressure. Doggett remained impassive, giving no indication of pain or discomfort.

"So," said Billings, breaking his grip, "I guess we should start with coffee."

"May, honey," he said, speaking into the intercom, "get us two coffees, would you? Good girl!"

Woodrow Billings was a large, fairly good-looking man, maybe six-two in height and broadly built, now starting to go to fat. In college he had undoubtedly been trimmer and almost certainly on the football team. John Doggett's initial impression of the man was not at all favorable, even without knowing he had harassed Monica Reyes. He knew and despised the type, had pegged him pretty much instantly. Billings was an overgrown frat-boy, a bully from a well off family who had never had to work for much of anything in his life.

"Cute girl, May," he said. "Only been with me a week. I get through assistants pretty rapidly, for some reason."

"Can't imagine why," said Doggett.

"Right. Anyway, I was told that Agent Reyes was partnering you and I was hoping to see her. We worked together in the New York office and, between the two of us, I think she had the hots for me."

"Agent Reyes is working a possibly related case elsewhere at the moment. I'll let her know you asked after her," said Doggett, dryly.

"Please do. So, what do you need from me and this office? We will, of course, assist you in any way we can."

"Well, I'll need to visit the murder scene," said Doggett, "but right now some background information would be useful. What can you tell me about Clay and the other recent gangland slayings?"

"Vincent Clay was the Mister Big of organized crime in Baltimore. We've tried to pin something on him for years but never succeeded, usually due to disappearing witnesses. He and his brother Kevin ran the Clay Trucking Company, a legitimate front for all their criminal activities, which they inherited off their father. Clay Senior was also heavily involved in the local rackets, the junior Clays inheriting the business when he was gunned down during a feud with the Ameche family, then Baltimore's leading gangsters. When Vincent and Kevin took over they took on the Ameches and, after a vicious gang war, emerged as top dogs. The Ameches eventually accepted the new status quo and relative peace had reigned for most of the past decade. Then, about three months ago, the Ameches started disappearing."

"Disappearing?" said Doggett. "You mean they were killed?"

"That's our assumption, yes, but honestly, Agent Doggett - we don't know," said Billings. "A few have turned up dead - they're the ones ballistics say were killed by the same gun used to take out Clay - but we have no idea what happened to the others. They all vanished without trace, as did Kevin Clay."

"You say this all started three months ago? About the same time Agent Boudreaux went missing?"

"That's right," said Billings. "Didn't come into work one day and hasn't been seen since."

"What was he working on?" asked Doggett.

"He and I were working together investigating the Clay empire, chasing down what we could, and closing it down where possible. We found out they were into loan sharking, extortion, prostitution, baby trafficking, drugs, illegal gaming, computer fraud - pretty much the whole smorgasbord of modern crime. We questioned both Clay brothers on a number of occasions. Over time, Boudreaux developed a reasonable rapport with Kevin and that resulted in him giving us a line on some Ameche operations, though never on anything he and Vincent were up to."

"Tell me about Kevin Clay," said Doggett.

"Where to start?" sighed Billings. "Let's see... Younger and smaller of the two brothers and so always overshadowed by Vincent, who was their father's favorite. Made up in viciousness for what he lacked in stature. Kevin was the enforcer, the one called in to collect on bad debts and the like."

He slid a photograph across his desk.

"That's him," he said.

Kevin Clay, gun in hand, was glaring out of the picture. He was thin, with close-cropped blond hair, had a small scar over his right eye, and radiated menace.

The door to the office opened at that point and May entered, carrying two coffees as she put them down on his desk, Billings attempted to pat her backside but she evaded him with obviously well practiced ease, frowning her annoyance.

"Feisty girl, that one," chuckled Billings, as she left the office. Doggett was amazed Billings still held the position he did. He could only assume strings had been pulled and family connections used.

"So , anyway," continued Billings, sipping his coffee, "when Boudreaux vanished, our initial assumption was he'd suffered the same fate as all those missing witnesses. His involvement in the hit on Vincent Clay has caused us to revise that view, of course."

"I'd like to borrow all the files associated with the investigations you were working on with Boudreaux, "said Doggett, draining his own coffee, "and all you can give me on the Clay hit. Also, I think I need to visit the crime scene for myself."

"Of course," said Billings, smoothly. "Anything you want."