"Sure." He displayed the card. It matched both his appearance and the photo on the computer.

"Just one more thing. I'm sorry. Your brother was very security minded, you know."

"Oh, sure," Wingate said. "The password." He whispered to her, "It's S-H-E-P." Mrs. Nagler nodded in confirmation. Irv gazed out the window at the liquid sunlight falling on a boxwood hedge. "That was Donald's first Airedale, Shep. We got it when he was twelve. That was a great dog. He still raises them, you know."

Mrs. Nagler said sadly, "I know. We sometimes e-mail each other pictures of our dogs. I've got two weimaraners." Her voice faded and she put this sorrowful thought away. She made a call, spoke to the girl's teacher and asked that she be brought to the main reception area.

Irv said, "Don't say anything to Sammie, please. I'll break the news to her on the way up."

"Of course."

"We'll stop for breakfast on the way. Egg McMuffins're her favorite."

Amy of the crimson suit choked at this bit of trivia. "That's what she had on the class trip to Yosemite…" She covered her eyes and cried silently for a moment.

An Asian woman – presumably the girl's teacher – led a skinny redheaded girl into the office. Mrs. Nagler smiled and said, "Your uncle Irving 's here."

"Irv," he corrected. "She calls me Uncle Irv. Hi, Sammie."

"Wow, you grew your mustache back like totally fast."

Wingate laughed. "Your aunt Kathy said I looked more distinguished." He crouched down. "Listen, your mommy and daddy decided you could take the day off school. We're going to go spend the day with them in Napa."

"They went up to the vineyard?"

"That's right."

A frown crossed the girl's freckled face. "Dad said they couldn't go till next week. Because of the painters."

"They changed their mind. And you get to go up there with me."

"Cool!"

The teacher said, "You go get your book bag now. Okay?"

The girl ran off and Mrs. Nagler told the teacher what'd happened. "Oh, no," the woman whispered as she shouldered her portion of the tragedy. A few minutes later Samantha reappeared, her heavy book bag hooked over her shoulder. She and Uncle Irv started out the door. The receptionist said to Mrs. Nagler, "Thank God she'll be in good hands."

And Irv Wingate must've heard her say this because he turned and nodded. Still, the receptionist did a brief double take; the smile he offered seemed just a little off, like an eerie gloat. But the woman decided she was wrong and put the look down to the terrible stress the poor man had to be under.

"Rise and shine," the snappy voice said.

Gillette opened his eyes and looked up at Frank Bishop, who was shaved and showered and absently tucking in his ornery shirttail.

"It's eight-thirty," Bishop said. "They let you sleep late at prison?"

"I was up till four," the hacker grumbled. "I couldn't get comfortable. But that's not really a surprise, is it?" He nodded at the large iron chair that Bishop had handcuffed him to.

"It was your idea, the cuffs and the chair."

"I didn't think you'd take it literally."

"What's to take literally?" Bishop asked. "Either you handcuff somebody to a chair or you don't."

The detective unhooked Gillette and the hacker rose stiffly, rubbing his wrist. He went into the kitchen and got coffee and a day-old bagel.

"By any chance, you ever get any Pop-Tarts around here?" Gillette called, returning to the main room of CCU.

"I don't know," Bishop responded. "This isn't my office, remember? Anyway, I'm not much for sweets. People should have bacon and eggs for breakfast. You know, hearty food." He sipped his coffee. "I was watching you – when you were asleep."

Gillette didn't know what to do with that. He lifted an eyebrow.

"You were typing in your sleep."

"They call it keying nowadays, not typing."

"Did you know you did that?"

The hacker nodded. "Ellie used to tell me I did. I sometimes dream in code."

"You do what?"

"I see script in my dreams – you know, lines of software source code. In Basic or C++ or Java." He looked around. "Where is everybody?"

"Linda and Tony're on their way. Miller too. Linda's still not a grandmother. Patricia Nolan called from her hotel." He held Gillette's eyes for a moment. "She asked if you were okay."

"She did?"

The detective nodded with a smile. "Gave me hell for cuffing you to the chair. She said you could've spent the night on the couch in her hotel room. Make of that what you will."

" Shelton?"

Bishop said, "He's at home with his wife. I called him but there was no answer. Sometimes he just has to disappear and spend time with her – you know, because that trouble I told you about before. His son dying."

A beep sounded from a nearby workstation. Gillette rose and went to look at the screen. His tireless bot had worked through the night, traveling the globe and it now had another prize to show for its efforts. He read the message and told Bishop, "Triple-X's online again. He's back in the hacker chat room."

Gillette sat down at the computer.

"We going to social engineer him again?" Bishop asked.

"No. I've got another idea."

"What?"

"I'm going to try the truth."

Tony Mott sped his expensive Fisher bicycle east, along

Stevens Creek Boulevard, outpacing many of the cars and trucks, and turned fast into the Computer Crimes Unit parking lot.

He always rode the 6.3 miles from his home in Santa Clara to the CCU building at a good pace – the lean, muscular cop bicycled as fast as he did all his other sports, whether he was skiing the chutes at A-basin in Colorado, heli-skiing in Europe, white-water rafting or rapelling down the sheer rock faces of the mountains he loved to climb.

But today he'd hiked particularly fast, thinking that sooner or later he'd wear down Frank Bishop – the way he hadn't been able to wear down Andy Anderson – and strap on body armor and do some real police work. He'd worked hard at the academy and, though he was a good cybercop, his assignment at CCU wasn't any more exciting than working on a graduate thesis. It was as if he were being discriminated against just because of his 3.97 grade point average at MIT.

Hooking the old, battered Kryptonite lock through the frame of his cycle, he glanced up to see a slim, mustachioed man in a raincoat striding up to him.

"Hi," the man offered, smiling.

"Hi, there."

"I'm Charlie Pittman, Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department."

Mott shook the offered hand. He knew many of the county detectives and didn't recognize this man but he gave a fast glance at the ID badge dangling from his neck and saw that the picture matched.

"You must be Tony Mott."

"Right."

The county cop admired the Fisher. "I heard that you cycle like a son of a bitch."

"Only when I'm going downhill," Mott said, smiling modestly, even though the truth was that, yes, he did cycle like a son of a bitch, whether it was downhill, uphill or on the flats.

Pittman laughed too. "I don't get half the exercise I should. Especially when we're after some perp like this computer guy."

Funny – Mott hadn't heard anything about somebody from the county working the case. "You going inside?" Mott pulled off his helmet.

"I was just in there. Frank was briefing me. This is one crazy case."

"I hear that," Mott agreed, stuffing the shooting gloves that doubled as biking gloves in the waistband of his spandex shorts.

"That guy that Frank's been using – that consultant? The young guy?"

"You mean Wyatt Gillette?"

"Yeah, that's his name. He really knows his stuff, doesn't he?"

"The man is a wizard," Mott said.

"How long's he going to be helping you out?"