New Hampshire, West Heparton, January 14 The man stood up slowly, staring ahead at the thicket a hundred yards away. The larger soft snowflakes had formed a mantle of white across his shoulders and salted his black toque to a shade of grey.

He brushed at the snow caught in his eyebrows and remained still. He knew the deer would be in the thicket, rooting through the light snow under the trees for winter forage, but he could not summon the will to go in after it.

He carried only his Olympus with its motordrive and telephoto lens, but he couldn't move. The thrill of the chase, if he could call it that, had left him. Even in this harmless situation.

The man hooted and yelled at the deer he couldn't see, slapping his mittened hands together. For a moment he thought the noise hadn't carried in the snow-muffled stillness. Then a doe burst from a seemingly solid section of the thicket, its legs drawn up in a perfect, gravity-defying bound, and was gone.

That moment of its disappearance triggered the memory. The snowbound landscape fell away from his eyes, replaced by that fine mist of blood, sprayed out in tiny droplets, beaded upon the filthy floorboards and slowly sinking into the grooves and cracks. The memory staggered him. He gasped for breath in its ferocity. He saw the startled face, eyes open, still moist, staring lifelessly at the delicate tongue tip, inches away, lying useless in the dust.

He shook his head to lose the image. Behind him was an old fallen tree trunk. He walked toward it, needing to sit down.

When he had calmed himself, his breathing steady, and his hands without tremors, the man prepared to examine the memory in detail. He had long ago learned that his subconscious was an important element of his success, and if something could affect him this strongly, he must review. It would not be the first time he had noted a mistake after the fact. But this time, it was far enough after the fact that he might not be able to do anything about it. He could only wait for them to come and get him.

With that, Granger Helman gazed out over the snow-covered hills of New Hampshire and reflected on the Delvecchio closing, the twenty-third and last time he had killed for money.

One year ago, Joe Delvecchio had vanished on his way to a luncheon appointment with business associates.

Delvecchio was the president of the Interstate Handlers Brotherhood and had been implicated in a number of quasi- legal actions involving pension fund misappropriation, election rigging and, it was rumoured, the murder of union officials and non-union protesters who had opposed him. The Handlers were approaching a level of power equal to or surpassing that of other major transportation unions when Delvecchio disappeared. No one seemed too surprised; it was known with whom he was dealing. Certain organisations which had made considerable investments in the shipment of goods across state lines, without the intervention or taxation of government, did not tolerate interference.

Most people believed Delvecchio had interfered. It was generally assumed he was dead, even though no body had been recovered, and no charges had been laid.

Helman had sources different from those of most people. He knew Delvecchio was dead, and for the reasons most people suspected, even though those reasons were wrong. Helman also knew why no body had been found or would ever be found. The organisations Delvecchio appeared to be moving against routinely invested in legitimate businesses as a method of disguising their cash income from other sources. There was not a single similar organisation operating in the United States which did not own or control at least one funeral parlour as one of its legitimate businesses.

Business was carried out as usual at these places, except when, occasionally and late at night, a delivery was made of an unidentified and unclaimed body.

After the next scheduled cremation, the body did not exist. True professionals left no traces.

Joe Delvecchio had been invited into the car of an associate, who had urgent news. Delvecchio's knuckles were scratched with a needle held in the barrel of a ballpoint pen. Three seconds later his striated muscles were useless. The drug was a curare derivative developed for certain types of brain surgery during which the probing of brain tissue might trigger sudden body movements. Delvecchio could see, hear, and breathe, but he couldn't move.

He was taken to an underground garage and transferred to a private ambulance.

The ambulance delivered him to an independent funeral parlour. A cremation was already scheduled for that evening.

His captors told Delvecchio exactly what they were doing. They also told him that the drug prevented the development of the shock syndrome. Despite his panic and terror, Delvecchio would not pass out or faint. He could count on being conscious for the rest of his life.

He was placed on a corpse in a coffin and slid into the crematorium. His last sensations were of the thud of the fire door being sealed behind him, the rush and bump of the gas jets igniting, and the air searing his lungs as the first flames crackled through the lid of the coffin.

They told Delvecchio to expect all of this, but they didn't tell him why. If they had, he wouldn't have understood.

They had killed the wrong person.

Six months later, when the political bickering and manoeuvring among the Handlers Brotherhood subsided and the transfer of powers had taken place, the people who had arranged for Delvecchio's removal realised the connections they had tried to sever were still operative. They were hidden, convoluted, but untouched by Delvecchio's elimination.

Delvecchio had been a puppet. New puppets were already in place.

The real power had lain, and still remained, with Delvecchio's wife, Roselynne. Wife, mother, killer of the innocent.

At this time, negotiations were begun with a specialised broker operating out of Miami. Granger Helman was brought in to correct the situation. As he thought of it, to close the deal.

The fee was exorbitant for a non-political, domestic closing: $100,000 American, in cash.

Helman's broker took a third from the top. Helman's share was delivered in cash, some of which would appear in his bank account after his return from a Las Vegas vacation, duly reported as gambling winnings. The rest was left with one of three 'soft' casinos in Las Vegas. For another percentage off the top, the management would invest Helman's cash in a number of prominent corporations where it would be turned around into consulting fees paid out to bank accounts owned by individuals who would carefully report the income to the IRS and pay full taxes. All the individuals were Helman. They were his 'drops'.

When in doubt, the government audited those whom it suspected of illegal activities. Helman's cautious use of a broker, which gave him the opportunity of refusing a closing-something which would lead to his own death if he attempted it as an independent-and the careful, complex manner by which the broker hid the source of his income had contributed to his survival. Helman had seen too many top professionals lose everything because of a simple tax audit in which they were unable to explain the presence of twenty thousand dollars in small bills.

The excessive fee was justified. Other people had developed an interest in the activities of Roselynne Delvecchio.

Helman would have to complete the closing while the deal-his target-was under the surveillance of the FBI.

Other conditions were also established. In this case, the body must be found. A lesson would be taught to the people dealing with Roselynne Delvecchio on both sides. There must be no doubt that she was deliberately executed.

The last condition was the most difficult. The Justice Department was expected to call a grand jury investigation into the operations of the Interstate Handlers Brotherhood within three weeks. At that time, Roselynne Delvecchio would disappear into the impenetrable security of protective detention.

Helman reviewed the conditions again, and analysed the methods he chose to meet them. One. He knew the deal could not be closed while the FBI was involved because he could not guarantee his safe withdrawal. For the same reason, he could not kidnap her and remove her from the FBI's presence. He must arrange for Roselynne to remove herself from surveillance.

A threat had to be made. One obvious to her but invisible to the watchers. Roselynne was a mother. The threat would be made against her children.

Helman paused in his review, uncomfortable as he recalled the ease with which he had made that decision to involve the innocent. The change which he felt struggling deep within him pushed that much closer to the surface. He gathered his thoughts again and continued, uneasy.

Two. The location of the closing could be made as secure as possible. The body could always be found as a result of a short phone call to an interested party. For the lesson to be evident, the call must not go to police or newspapers.

Instead it must be made to members of the groups working with Roselynne; high-ranking members who believed they were unimplicated, untouchable. Panic would ensue and the lesson would be learned.

Three. For an execution to be obvious, many methods were immediately unsuitable. The undetectable drugs which Helman favoured, disguising themselves as heart attacks and insulin shock, were too subtle. Mechanical methods like bullets and cutting instruments left too many possibilities for forensic detection. A drop of blood, a single filing of metal, and a chain of events could be followed back to Helman. He would use his hands. If records were checked to assemble a list of all those who had the training to inflict such injuries, Helman's name would probably be on it. But unless a list could be assembled naming all those who had the will to use their training, he would be invisible in a list of thousands.

Helman could see no flaws in his reasoning. The plan had taken him a day to develop, two weeks to prepare. He was ready to close the deal a week before the grand jury was convened. He moved immediately.

Breaking into Delvecchio's house was the riskiest phase of the operation. But Helman knew how the FBI worked, how they thought, and acted accordingly.

He penetrated the FBI's surveillance at night. He took three hours to carefully move through the unlit back garden and conceal himself in the well of a basement window. If he had entered the house then, the first perimeter of the house's commercial alarm system would have been activated and he would have been caught. Instead, he waited.

In the morning, as Roselynne's three children left for school and she for union headquarters, the alarm system was deactivated to allow them to move out of the house. Helman, at that time, moved in.

Ultrasonic motion detectors were not in use because the children's cats were allowed to roam the house. The alarm system's second perimeter was a system of pressure-sensitive mats concealed under carpeting by windows and on stairways. Helman avoided windows and climbed up banisters.

When the house was empty, Helman moved into the kitchen. The FBI listening post had shifted its attention to the union headquarters' telephones. Helman was able to attach two devices to the kitchen telephone without alerting them.

In the refrigerator, he found the unopened carton of milk he had observed Roselynne purchase after work the evening before. His hypodermic slid easily into the top seal of the carton without leaving a visible puncture.

Helman returned to the basement. He had fasted for the two days previous to prevent the need for elimination, enabling him to stay hidden in one area for many hours.

When the children returned home and deactivated the alarm system again, Helman moved back to the window well.

Later that night he withdrew through the garden past the unsuspecting FBI agents.

Again and again Helman reviewed his penetration of the house. He was convinced it was flawless. He did not know there had been other watchers in the garden that night, equally invisible to the FBI.

At three o'clock that morning, Helman placed his first call to the Delvecchio house. Roselynne answered, her voice sleep-blurred and annoyed. The FBI agents listened intently.

Drunkenly, Helman demanded to speak with Mr. Till. Roselynne was confused, she did not know anyone by that name. Helman read off a phone number. It was Delvecchios' number with the final two digits transposed. Roselynne slammed down the phone.

The FBI judged the possibilities. The phone call could have been a coded message, an attempt to determine if Roselynne was home, or a call which activated a listening device concealed within a phone in the house. As Helman had anticipated, the FBI immediately investigated the number he had given to Roselynne. It belonged to a Paul Till. The FBI called him and yes he had received a phone call moments after the call to Roselynne from a drunk who demanded to talk to Peter Till. The FBI left the investigation there. The phone call, as far as they were concerned, had been a legitimate wrong number. Meanwhile, Helman's listening device in the kitchen phone had been fully activated and was working perfectly.

The next morning Helman listened as the Delvecchio's awoke and prepared themselves for another day of work and school. After he heard the sounds of the children in the kitchen eating their cereal, Helman placed his second call.

What Roselynne Delvecchio heard terrified her. What the FBI heard was unintelligible. The second device Helman had attached to the phone was a scrambling unit compatible to the one he spoke through. The garbled transmission was decoded when it reached the device in the kitchen phone. Where the FBI had placed their intercept on the outside cable however, all they heard was interference. Eventually, they would get around to reacting, but Helman knew it would not be soon enough.

Roselynne threw the receiver onto the kitchen counter. She ran towards the breakfast table and with a wild sweep of her arm sent breakfast cereal bowls and glasses to shatter on the floor. As she had been instructed she took the now almost empty milk carton into the living room and poured a few drops into the aquarium tank. From behind her, she could hear the confused crying of her youngest child as the others tried to clean up the mess. The sounds were masked by the rushing of her blood as she saw the fish in the tank begin to violently twitch and shudder and sickeningly float to the surface.

The man on the phone had told the truth. There was a nerve toxin in the children's milk. The fish, being so small, reacted immediately. Her children had, at most, an hour.

She went back to the phone, shaking, and agreed to everything Helman told her.

The children would remain at home. If Roselynne did everything as she was told, a man would come to her house with a fruit drink. The children were to drink it. In it was the antidote.

But for the man to come at all, Roselynne must be at a certain location within five minutes. The phone went dead.

Seconds later Roselynne screeched out of her garage in a late-model Cadillac. She was leaving an hour before her regular routine. The FBI was caught without a pursuit vehicle. By the time instructions were issued to local police, Roselynne had arrived at the designated parking lot and transferred to another car. Helman was the driver. He had two conditions left to meet.

There was a storage yard ten miles away. A construction rental company kept job shacks there; offices built like mobile homes to be driven wherever they were required. They contained nothing of value and the one guard at the gate was old and slow. He was unconscious before he had a chance to think that Helman might be any threat.

Helman drove to a job shack he had already prepared. A wire stretched from it to the telephone pole outside the guard's shack. Roselynne went first, directed by the gun Helman held.

The woman seemed oblivious to the danger she might be in. She demanded Helman order the antidote sent to her children. Helman said they had been watched in the parking lot; her children had already been treated. She had nothing to worry about.

In reality, the children had never been in danger. The substance he had injected into the milk carton was a naturally occurring poison derived from a species of sole found in the Red Sea. The Navy used it to allow divers to work in shark-infested water. It was deadly to fish yet had no affect on humans. There was no need for a second party to be involved in any of Helman's closings. His security, he thought, was impenetrable.

He placed the phone call which would inform his clients that the deal was to be closed. They would make their calls to alert the people behind Roselynne's actions. The phone call was brief. The clients hung up after Helmut spoke the coded message. But Helman held the receiver to his ear and pretended confusion. He held a one-sided conversation with the dead line for a few seconds before hanging up.

Roselynne looked at him questioningly.

He explained that a mistake had been made. Certain people had suspected Roselynne of directing the misappropriation of pension funds. She was to be killed because of it. But new evidence had come to light. The real thieves had been detected. Roselynne was to go free.

The dark terror left Roselynne's face as exultation took over. She spun, still dressed in her nightgown and housecoat, to stare out the one dingy window in the shack. She had given up everything in the last hour, and now it was being miraculously restored. Freedom was her last thought, her last experience, as Helman's knuckles drove into the base of her skull, severing her spinal cord and crushing her medulla oblongata.

Roselynne Delvecchio was dead before she fell to the floor.

In her last second, she must have been licking her tension-dried lips. The violent snap of her head had brought her teeth together, tearing her tongue tip away from her in a fine mist of blood.

It was the blood that startled Helman. It was to have been a clean closing, a simple closing. He had given her her last freedom as an act of compassion, an apology that for the successful completion of this business deal, she, unfortunately, must die.

Helman shifted on his New England tree trunk. He knew why the blood had startled him. He knew why it returned to him again and again.

It was the one element he hadn't planned.

Everything had been meticulously organised. He had run through each step so often before undertaking the actual closing that it was mechanical. A business deal, nothing more.

But for Roselynne licking her lips, the mist of blood sprayed out in tiny droplets, beaded upon the filthy floor- boards and slowly sinking into the grooves, something new had been added. Something that did not fit into his precise plan.

Roselynne's startled face, eyes open, still moist, staring lifelessly at the delicate tongue tip lying useless in the dust, framed by that dark halo of blood, made her elimination more than a closing.

It was murder.

At that moment in the job shack, Helman knew it had been his final closing. He stared transfixed by the thin trickle of life which slid from between those lips that had talked and eaten and kissed, and saw in its moist glimmer the sparkle of the snow which awaited him in his New England. His refuge, his comfort. The forty thousand he would realise was the final amount he needed to buy his own farm, a few miles from his sister Miriam's farm. He would be rid of his profession. His freedom would be real, not the ephemeral promise made to Roselynne.

The blood focused him and his thoughts. He looked into it and saw the twenty-two others he had murdered, always calmly, sometimes proudly, telling himself he was punishing those whom the law could never touch, doing his duty for justice as he had that first time, for his sister. And Helman knew in his thoughts that it was a lie and that he was finished with it.

But it was only now, alone in the hills, enwrapped in the gentle snow with the warmth of Miriam's farmhouse less than a mile away, that he, for the first time, felt it: that all that he had done was finished. The change burst free and his struggle stopped.

Whitened by the falling flakes, ears heavy with the snow's silence, Granger Helman wept for the life that now was behind him.

Later, the tensions and realisations released, Helman stood up from the tree trunk and stared out at the blue-white hills, slowly darkening in the late afternoon sun. The old life had left him. It would be years perhaps, before the final wounds were healed, safely forgotten in the depths of unwanted memory, but for now, there were new things to consider.

The day before, he had given his deposit to the real estate agent in Goffstown. In the spring, the farm he had wanted for so long would be his. The things he had put off for so many years, telling himself that someday he would get to them, were going to fill his life.

It would be a good feeling to be able to have Miriam and Steven and Campbell, her two boys, visit him to repay them for all the love they had shown him over the years he was constantly travelling and out of touch. Helman's life was changing today. He was happy. And for no other particular reason he shouted.

He listened carefully to see if some faint echo might come back to him. Instead he heard the rumble of a van as it drove away from the front of his sister's house.

He stared after it as it flickered between the bare trees at the side of the road. It was too late for the Sears truck to be delivering from Concord, too light in colour to be a UPS van. Like the FBI agents who had immediately moved to check out a seemingly innocent phone call to a wrong number, Helman knew that the unusual was always something of which to be wary. A small tingle fluttered through his stomach. The van was gone. He wondered if he should return to the house.

Then the back door of the house opened and a figure came out, looked around, and, spotting Helman on the rise, began to wave at him. Helman held up his Olympus and sighted through the telephoto lens. It was his nephew Steven, not waving to him, but waving at him to come back.

The tingle grew into tautness that spread through his abdomen.

For a sickening instant, Helman knew the van had a connection to him. His lightness of only a few moments ago sped away from him as an all too familiar feeling took over: the adrenaline-honed concentration that engulfed him as it had before each closing. That awful, purposeful concentration which he had decided never to reel again, owned him.

All was as it had been. With a clear mind and unfeeling body he trudged through the snow toward the shadow- darkened house and the message from the van.

The package, slightly larger than a shoebox and carefully wrapped and sealed in heavy kraft paper and adhesive paper strips, sat on an upright firelog against a tree in the back garden.

Helman stood in the back porch, out of sight of any neighbours who might have puzzled over his walk to place the package so far away from the house, and carefully wrapped a heavy blanket around the barrel of his old Remington 722.

He was as ice.

Behind him stood Miriam. She had sent the boys inside, warning them to stay away from the windows which, if his suspicions were correct, Helman thought might shatter. Miriam, however, would not leave her brother's side.

She was older than Helman, though he jokingly called her his younger sister. Yet she shared with him the legacy of their parents with an unwrinkled face and sharp, clear features.

But now her face was darkened with worry; her eyebrows drawn together, building shadows over her eyes. She had always carried the guilt of believing she had started her brother in his career, and now that feeling had grown to impossible tension because she had accepted the package which sat waiting for its first bullet.

It had a typewritten label. There was no postage, no return address. The courier who had delivered it had offered no bill of lading to be signed.

It was addressed to Helman, even though no one knew he was at his sister's farm. His life was too controlled. No one knew him.