There was a box cutter on the shipping counter and Lawrence used it to slash through the sealing tape and customs stamps. He opened the lid and was disappointed to find a set of fiberglass armor made for a samurai movie. Breastplate. Helmet. Gauntlets. And then, near the bottom of the case, a sword wrapped in brown paper.

Lawrence picked up the weapon and knew it was too heavy to be made of fiberglass. Quickly, he ripped off the paper that covered the sword’s handle and saw that the fittings were burnished gold. His father’s sword. A talisman.

BOONE WAS ALWAYS suspicious when a troublesome employee decided not to come into work. Five minutes after his conversation with the staff in London, he sent a member of his security team to Lawrence Takawa’s residence. A surveillance van was already parked across the street from the town house when Boone arrived. He got into the back of the van and found a technician named Dorfman munching on corn chips while he stared at the screen of a thermal imaging device.

“Takawa is still in the house, sir. He called the research center this morning and said he had the flu.”

Boone knelt on the floor of the van and examined the image. Faint lines showed walls and pipes. A bright patch of warmth was in the bedroom.

“That’s the bedroom,” Dorfman said. “And there’s our sick employee. The Protective Link is still active.”

As they watched, the body jumped off the bed and appeared to crawl to the open doorway. It hesitated for a few seconds, then returned to the mattress. During the entire sequence the body was never more than two or three feet off the floor.

Boone kicked open the back of the van and stepped out onto the street. “I think it’s time to meet with Mr. Takawa-or whatever is lying on his bed.”

IT TOOK THEM forty-five seconds to break down the front door and ten seconds to enter Lawrence’s bedroom. Puppy biscuits were scattered across the bedspread where a mongrel dog sat chewing on a beef bone. The animal whimpered slightly when Boone came closer. “Good dog,” he murmured. “Good dog.” A plastic sandwich bag was taped to the dog’s collar. Boone pulled the bag open and found a Protective Link device covered with blood.

AS LAWRENCE HEADED south on Second Avenue, a raindrop splattered on the windshield of his car. Dark gray clouds covered the sky, and an American flag on a steel pole fluttered wildly. Bad storm coming. He would have to drive carefully. The back of Lawrence’s right hand was covered with a bandage, but the wound still hurt. Trying to ignore the pain, he glanced over his shoulder at the backseat. A day earlier he had purchased a set of golf clubs and a golf bag with an outer traveling case. The sword and scabbard were nestled between the irons and the putter.

Driving his car to the airport was a calculated risk. Lawrence had considered buying a used car that didn’t have a Global Positioning System, but the purchase might be detected by the Tabula security system. The last thing he wanted was a computer inquiry asking him: Why did you purchase another car, Mr. Takawa? What’s wrong with your vehicle leased by the Evergreen Foundation?

The best disguise was to act as ordinary as possible. He would drive to Kennedy airport, board a plane to Mexico, and reach the vacation town of Acapulco by eight o’clock that evening. At this point, he would disappear from the Vast Machine. Instead of going to a hotel, he would hire one of the Mexican drivers who waited at the airport and head south toward Guatemala. He would use additional drivers for hundred-mile segments, check into small pensions, and find a new driver a few hours later. As he made the transition into the Central American countryside, he could avoid the facial scanners and the Carnivore programs accessed by the Brethren.

Twelve thousand dollars in cash was sewn into the lining of his raincoat. Lawrence had no idea how long this money would last. Perhaps he would have to bribe the authorities or buy a house in a rural village. The cash was his only resource. Any use of a check or a credit card would immediately be detected by the Tabula.

More raindrops fell, two or three at a time. Lawrence waited at a stoplight and saw that people with umbrellas were walking quickly, trying to find shelter before the storm began. He turned left and headed east toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel. It’s time to start a new life, he told himself. Throw the old life away. He lowered the window and began to toss his credit cards into the street. If some stranger found them and used them, it would cause even more confusion.

A HELICOPTER WAS waiting for Boone when he reached the foundation research center. He got out of his car, walked quickly across the grass, and got inside. As the helicopter slowly rose up into the air, Boone plugged his headset into the communication jack and heard Simon Leutner’s voice.

“Takawa was at the administrative center in Manhattan twenty minutes ago. He entered the mail room using his ID card and left the building six minutes later.”

“Can we find out what he did there?”

“Not immediately, sir. But they’re starting an inventory assessment of the mail and packages that might have been in the room.”

“Start a full information scan looking for Takawa. Have one of your teams focus on his charge card and bank account activity.”

“We’ve already started that. He emptied his savings account yesterday.”

“Organize another team to enter the airline data systems and check for a flight reservation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Direct the major effort toward tracking his car. At this point, we have one advantage. Takawa is driving somewhere, but I don’t think he knows we’re searching for him.”

Boone peered out the side window of the helicopter. He saw the two-line asphalt roads of Westchester County and, in the distance, the New York State Thruway. Cars and other vehicles were headed for different destinations. A school bus. A FedEx delivery truck. A green sports car cutting in and out of traffic.

In the past, people had spent extra money to order global positioning technology for their cars, but this was gradually becoming standard equipment. The GPS provided driving directions and helped the police find stolen cars. They gave monitoring services the ability to unlock doors or flash headlights if a car was lost in a parking lot, but they also turned each car into a large moving object that could easily be monitored by the Vast Machine.

Most citizens didn’t realize that their cars also contained a black-box system that provided information about what was going on in the vehicle a few seconds before a collision. Tire manufacturers had implanted microchips into the tire wall that could be read by remote sensors. The sensors linked the tire to the vehicle identification number and the name of the owner.

As the helicopter continued to rise, the Brethren computers in London were forcing their way into code-protected data systems. Like digital ghosts, they glided through walls and appeared in storage rooms. The external world still looked the same, but the ghosts could see the hidden towers and walls of the Virtual Panopticon.

WHEN LAWRENCE DROVE out of the Queens Midtown Tunnel, the rain was falling hard. Raindrops exploded on the pavement and rattled on the roof of the car. Traffic halted completely, then inched forward like a tired army. He exited onto Grand Central Parkway with a line of other cars. In the distance, he could see sheets of rain pushed sideways by the wind.