Before lunch they had gone over the crime scene and the ME's reports, and there was still no getting around the fact that the death of Roland Minton was very violent and damned strange. Sergeant Lester Cole's crime sheet was very specific-he had particularly noted that there was no obvious way anything or anybody could have gotten in or out of Roland's room. Cole had speculated that somehow someone must have hung outside the window thirty stories up, pried open the frame, which he noted would be a superhuman feat, then had gained entrance to the hotel room. Sergeant Cole had no theory on how that could have been done or how the thick metal could have been bent.

The coroner's descriptions were unemotional but graphic: felonious homicide, extreme mutilation, blunt-force trauma, anti-mortem severance, multiple commuted fractures, decapitation, cutaneous subdural matter…

It went on like that, detailing shredded body parts and blood-splatter evidence. Jack read it but didn't comment, because Susan had become very quiet and seemed on the verge of tears. The coroner called the murder extreme homicidal mania. What it came down to was Roland Minton had been ripped apart while he was still alive.

The only other noteworthy thing was in the short paragraph listing stomach contents: a partially digested Big Mac approximately six hours old, Coca-Cola, minibar peanuts, and a note. According to the coroner, it had been swallowed seconds before Roland died but was still readable. Just one word:

The briefing was at 5:00 p.m. in the main conference room on the sixth floor of DARPA headquarters. The building was a nondescript, brick-faced affair located inside the Virginia Square Plaza in Arlington, Virginia.

In attendance were Deputy Director Vincent Valdez; his assistant, Paul Talbot, and his two assistant military attaches, Captain Norm Pettis, U.S.M.C., and Captain Stanley Greenberg, U.S.N. There were also two Acquisitions and Technology special assistants, an information special tech, a liaison officer, a defense science officer, and a captain from the Special Projects office. A naval lieutenant JG, Sally Watts, the youngest person in the room at only twenty-three, was also a top forensic computer specialist. Next to her was a program interrogation coordinator and a woman from the comptroller's office.

For such a large gathering the sixth-floor conference room was opened and they had put out coffee and donuts. A low murmur of voices filled the corridor, finally, two-star Air Force General William "Buzz" Turpin, director of DARPA, swept into the room and took his place at the head of the table.

Young at sixty-eight, Turpin's demeanor was hard and humorless. He began without preamble: "Did everybody get the oh-eight-hundred Re-Op?"

The room nodded. Re-Op stood for Report of Operations. This one was the detailed description of a breach of the secure computer at Gen-A-Tec.

The room was hushed. This was Turpin's meeting.

"Since the penetration at the New Fairview Hotel in San Francisco by our high-risk special response team at oh-five-hundred yesterday morning, and the subsequent collateralization of the computer hacker by our DU, we have, unfortunately, experienced further breakdowns," Buzz said softly. He always spoke in a very quiet voice-a trick he'd learned on the debate team at the Air Force Academy. Everybody in the room was leaning forward to catch every word.

"The DU recovered Roland Minton's computer. Minton attempted to erase his last e-mail after he sent it, but Lieutenant Watts managed to digitally reconstruct the message. We have copies for all of you."

Vincent Valdez stood and passed Roland's last e-mail around the table. Turpin paused while it was read. When all eyes were once again focused on him, he continued.

"This message was e-mailed to a portable computer. We have the name of the owner but not his location."

Several ballpoint pens clicked and people began making notes.

"You'll note that the e-mail address is Strockmeister at earthlink-dot-net. That turns out to be somebody named Herman Strockmire Jr. I'm going to go over the pertinent facts in the e-mail, then you can address questions to your section leaders or to Mr. Valdez after the meeting.

"One: The dead hacker sent the fifty-page Chimera file to Herman Strockmire's computer. Location unknown. The only address we have is his office in D.C. He's not there. Apparently his secretary doesn't know where he is. More on that in a minute.

"Two: According to our cryptographer the encoded file is going to take around two days for Roland's 'bud' to decode, even with ten sun solar work stations. That means we have as little as two days to get it back before we end up in a public-relations disaster.

"Three: The forensic computer section under Lieutenant Watts is working up a list of companies in the Western U.S. that have ten sun solar work stations. It has to be a big lash-up. Once we have that list we cross-check it against an employee named Zimmy. It's undoubtedly a nickname, so it could stand for anything from Zim to Zimmerman. And, Lieutenant, I need all of this yesterday."

Sally Watts nodded as she jotted notes furiously.

"Four: Herman Strockmire Jr. runs a legal firm called the Institute for Planetary Justice. To put it politely, he's a tree-and-bunny-hugger who has sued just about every federal letter agency in the government. I'm evaluating the possibility of picking up his secretary and debriefing her, but these people are fanatics, and I'm not sure that's our most prudent course of action. Besides, if Strockmire's the delusional paranoid our profile makes him out to be, she may have been kept in the dark."

Buzz Turpin leaned back in his chair and paused for emphasis, then said, "Strockmire is in possession of devastating material that could create huge problems for us. Last week he was in L.A. suing a bunch of federal agencies and private labs over GMO food. He got Rule-Elevened in Judge Melissa King's court and fined a million dollars. I think a primary course of action might be to contact Judge King through a blind and see if she can lure him in again. Maybe, if she offers to cut his fine, he'll show up and we can grab him. We're running a logistics scan on that and one or two other potential operation plans. We'll have something in a few hours. As of now nobody seems to know where Strockmire is. We have to change that.

"Five: This person Susie who's mentioned in the e-mail is undoubtedly Susan Strockmire, Herman's daughter. She is leverage, and I want her. Get a sniffer on her bank account and on Strockmire's. Five-hour updates."

Buzz Turpin cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Okay, people, one more thing-and this is important: I'm not looking to turn this into a major news story. One of the problems with this guy is that he has celebrity friends who are environmentalists and animal-rights fanatics. The last thing I need is for fucking Marlon Brando or Cher to jump on the Today Show and start screaming we murdered him.

This means Strockmire needs to be neutralized but not necessarily collateralized-at least not yet. What we've got here is a big, sloshing bucket of shit, and I don't want to get any more of it on us than necessary. Any deviation from this op plan gets cleared by either Vincent, Paul Talbot, or me. Nobody moves on his own initiative. Are we all absolutely clear on this?"

Everyone in the room nodded.

"Okay. Get going. We're going to have twelve-hour debriefs in this room at oh-seven-hundred and fourteen-hundred hours. Everybody, except people assigned to location field ops, will be in attendance. No exceptions." General Buzz Turpin stood and exited the room with long strides and a face that looked like it had been hacked out of granite. Once he was gone Vincent Valdez turned to the room.