Two seconds later, he found his face scraping painfully against the concrete-block wall of the hangar. His arm was twisted painfully upward on his back.

"What the fuck?" he protested and then yelped with pain.

"Didn't your mother, back in the kennel, try to teach you not to use that word in the presence of ladies?" Miller asked, almost conversationally.

"Let me the fuck go!" Thorne yelped. Then yelped again in pain.

"You're apparently retarded, blubber belly, so I'll speak slowly," Miller said. "To begin, I'm not your brother. I'm an officer of the federal government, conducting an investigation. And you are not cooperating. That annoys me. When I'm annoyed, I tend to hurt whoever is annoying me. You understand that?"

Thorne yelped again in pain.

"Good," Miller said.

"You'll go to fucking jail for this," Thorne said.

He yelped again in pain.

"There's that naughty word again," Miller said. "You really are a slow learner, aren't you?"

Thorne groaned as his arm was pushed farther upward.

"Say, 'Yes, sir,' " Miller said.

There was no response until after Thorne again yelped-this time almost pathetically-after which he said, "Yes, sir. Jesus Christ, man!"

"Let's talk about jail," Miller said. "I'm not going to jail. You are. You will be charged with assault upon a federal officer, which is a felony calling for five years' imprisonment. During the assault your shoulder was dislocated. If you say 'fuck' one more time, both shoulders. That smarts."

Thorne groaned again as Miller demonstrated the pain which accompanies a shoulder about to be dislocated.

"That white man out there is a supervisory special agent of the Secret Service. Who do you think a judge is going to believe, him or a fat slob wearing gold chains and a Rolex who got rich exploiting his African American brothers and sisters by paying them minimum wage to clean dirty airplanes?"

"Jesus Christ, man!"

"Yahoo," Miller said. "You know what that means, blubber belly?"

Thorne shook his head and moaned.

"You Always Have Other Options," Miller said. "You understand? Say, 'Yes, sir.' "

Thorne audibly drew a painful breath, then said, "Yes, sir."

"Would you like to know what your other option is? Say, 'Yes, sir.' "

"Yes, sir," Thorne said, nodding.

"We go back out there and I tell Mr. Castillo that after talking it over you decided that you were wrong and now realize it is your duty as a citizen to cooperate with the investigation and that just as soon as we can get to your office you'll give us whatever records we want. You understand your other option? Say, 'Yes, sir.' "

"Okay, okay. Jesus!"

He yelped in pain, then said, "Yes, sir."

"And which option do you choose, blubber belly? You cooperate? Or you go to the slam with both arms hanging loosely from your shoulders?"

"Okay, I'll cooperate. I'll cooperate."

"Good."

"Are you going to let me go now?"

"One more thing. If you say 'fuck' one more time in the presence of that lady, I will rip your arm off and shove it up your fat ass. Understand? Say, 'Yes, sir.' "

"Yes, sir," Thorne said.

"I had the feeling you and I could work this out amicably between us," Miller said and let him go.

[FIVE]

Philadelphia Police Department

Counterterrorism Bureau

Frankford Industrial Complex

Building 110

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1505 9 June 2005

"It's going to take some time to check out all these people," Chief Inspector Kramer said, tapping his fingers on the stack of Daily Employment Records Mr. Ed Thorne of Aviation Cleaning Services, Inc., had somewhat less than graciously provided to them, and then went on to explain, "I want to run them past as many people as I can, not just the undercover guys."

"I understand," Castillo said. "Have you been able to contact any of your undercover people?"

"All of them," Kramer said. "But all that means is they know we want a meet. The problem is setting up the meets. That has to be done very carefully. And that won't happen in the daytime."

He paused and then raised his eyes to Castillo. "Is there anything else you'd like to look into, like to see?"

Castillo smiled. "You mean that not only wouldn't we be useful around here but in the way?"

"You said it, I didn't," Kramer said.

"Dick, when was the last time you saw the Liberty Bell?" Castillo asked.

"Aside from driving past it, I guess I was in the eighth grade," Miller replied.

"I think maybe you should have a fresh look at it," Castillo said.

"Good idea," Kramer said, smiling. "If anything opens up, I'll give you a call."

"I'm sure you noticed the no parking sign," Miller said to Betty Schneider as she slowed the Crown Victoria, stopped, turned on the seat, and started to back up to the Market Street curb.

He was in the front passenger seat beside her.

"Not only can I read but I can tie my own shoes," she said. "We're on official police business."

She saw Castillo smiling and smiled back.

"Tell him, Sarge," Castillo said.

"That's a National Park Service sign," Miller argued, pointing. "Does that 'official police business' business work on the feds? On federal property?"

"Market Street belongs to Philadelphia," she said. "Federal property begins just past the sidewalk." She pointed down the open area to the structure erected over the Liberty Bell and to Constitution Hall behind it. "Sometimes, there's a jurisdictional problem."

"Really? How so?" Castillo asked.

She was getting out of the car and didn't reply.

When he was standing on the sidewalk, Castillo saw a Philadelphia police officer walking quickly down the sidewalk toward them. Then the policeman took a close look at the car, nodded, half smiled, and started walking back up Market Street, toward City Hall.

He sensed that Betty had seen him watching the policeman.

"How did he know you were a cop?" Castillo asked. "And on official business?"

"Masculine intuition, is what I think they call it," she said.

"Touche," Castillo chuckled.

"I don't think I've been here since eighth grade, either," Betty said as they started to walk down the plaza toward the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall.

"I don't remember that," Miller said, pointing at the words cast into the bell.

"I thought everyone knew that 'Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof was cast into the bell," Castillo said, piously. "How many times did you say they kept you behind in the eighth grade?"

Betty smiled and shook her head. Concealing the fingers of his right hand from Betty with the palm of his left hand, Miller gave Castillo the finger.

"I meant that they misspelled Pennsylvania, wiseass," Miller said. "Only one n."

Castillo looked.

"So they did," he said. "I guess they had trouble with eighth grade, too."

"It also says the 'Province' of Pennsylvania," Betty said. "I never saw that before. I always thought it was called a 'commonwealth.' "

Miller walked around the bell. Castillo looked down the plaza toward Market Street.

"What are you thinking?" Betty asked.

"It's a beautiful day."

"It is, but that's not what you're thinking," she said.

"No," he admitted. "I was thinking that on the tenth of September there were probably fewer than fifty people who considered suicidal lunatics crashing airliners into the World Trade Center was even a remote possibility."

"And you think an attack here is likely, right?"

"I wish I didn't," he said. "And I feel a little guilty doing nothing about it but playing tourist."