The CCU cop, wearing his biking shorts, a Nike shirt and with his Oakley sunglasses dangling from his neck, crawled farther into the warehouse. He fired again, keeping Nolan on the defensive. She fired several times but missed as well.

"What the hell's going on? What's she doing?"

"She killed Holloway. I was next."

Nolan fired again then eased toward the front of the warehouse.

Mott grabbed Gillette by the pants cuff and dragged him to cover then emptied the clip of the automatic in the woman's direction. For all his love of SWAT team operations the cop seemed panicked to be in a real shoot-out. He was also a really bad shot. As he reloaded, Nolan disappeared behind some cartons.

"Are you hit?" Mott's hands were shaking and he was breathless.

"No, she got me with a stun gun or something. I can't move."

"What about Frank?"

"He's not shot. But we've got to get him to a doctor. How did you know we were here?"

"Frank called and told me to check the records on this place."

Gillette remembered Bishop's making the call from Nolan's hotel room.

Scanning the warehouse for Nolan, the young cop continued, "That prick Backle knew Frank and you took off together. He had a tap on our phones. He heard the address and called some of his people to pick you up here. I came over here to warn you."

"But how'd you get through all the traffic?"

"My bike, remember?" Mott crawled to Bishop, who was starting to stir. Then, from across the dinosaur pen, Nolan rose and fired a half-dozen shots in their direction. She fled out the front door.

Mott reluctantly started after her.

Gillette called, "Be careful. She can't get away through the traffic either. She'll be outside, waiting…"

But his voice faded as he heard a distinctive sound, growing closer. He realized that, like hackers, people with jobs like Patricia Nolan must be experts at improvising; a countywide traffic jam wasn't going to interfere with her plans. The noise was the roar of the helicopter, undoubtedly the one disguised as a press chopper that he'd seen before, the one that had delivered her here.

In less than thirty seconds the craft had picked her up and was in the air again, speeding away, the chunky sound of the rotors soon replaced by the curiously harmonic orchestra of car and truck horns filling the late-afternoon sky.

Gillette and Bishop were back at the Computer Crimes Unit.

The detective was out of the urgent-care facility. A concussion, a fierce headache and eight stitches were the only evidence of his ordeal – along with a new shirt to replace the bloody one. (This one fit somewhat better than its predecessor but it too seemed largely tuck-resistant.)

The time was 6:30 P.M. and public works had managed to reload the software that controlled the traffic lights. Much of the congestion in Santa Clara County was gone. A search of San Jose Computer Products turned up a gasoline bomb and some information about the fire alarm system of Northern California University. Aware of Phate's love of diversion, Bishop was concerned that the killer had planted a second device on the campus. But a thorough search of the dormitories and other school buildings revealed nothing.

To no one's surprise Horizon On-Line claimed they'd never heard of a Patricia Nolan. The company executives and the head of corporate security in Seattle said they'd never contacted California state police headquarters after the Lara Gibson killing – and no one had sent Andy Anderson any e-mails or faxes about Nolan's credentials. The Horizon On-Line number that Anderson had called to verify her employment was a working Horizon phone line but, according to the phone company in Seattle, all calls going into that number were forwarded – to a Mobile

America cell phone with unassigned numbers, which was no longer in use.

The security staff at Horizon knew of no one fitting her description either. The address under which she'd registered at her hotel in San Jose was fake and the credit card was phony too. All the phone calls she'd made from the hotel were to that same, hacked Mobile America number.

Not a soul at CCU believed Horizon's denial, of course. But proving a connection between HOL and Patricia Nolan was going to be difficult – as was finding her in the first place. A picture of the woman, lifted from a security tape in CCU headquarters, went out on ISLEnet to state police bureaus around the country and to the feds for posting to VICAR Bishop, however, had to include the embarrassing disclaimer that even though the woman had spent several days in a state police facility they had no samples of her fingerprints and that her appearance was probably considerably different from what the tape showed.

At least the whereabouts of the other co-conspirator had been discovered. The body of Shawn – Stephen Miller -had been found in the woods behind his house; he'd shot himself with his service revolver after he learned that they'd caught on to his identity. His remorseful suicide note had, naturally, been in the form of an e-mail.

CCU's Linda Sanchez and Tony Mott were trying to piece together the extent of Miller's betrayal. The state police would have to issue a statement that one of their officers had been an accomplice in the hacker murder case in Silicon Valley, and Internal Affairs wanted to find out how much damage Miller had done and how long he'd been Phate's partner and lover.

Department of Defense agent Backle was still intent on collaring Wyatt Gillette for a laundry list of offenses involving the Standard 12 encryption program, and now wanted to arrest Frank Bishop as well – for breaking a federal prisoner out of custody.

As for the charges against Gillette for the Standard 12 hack, Bishop explained to Captain Bernstein, "It's pretty clear, sir, that Gillette either seized root at one of Holloway's FTP sites and downloaded a copy of the script or just telneted directly into Holloway's machine and got a copy that way."

"What the hell does that mean?" the grizzled, crew-cut cop had snapped.

"Sorry, sir," Bishop had said, then had translated the techno-speak. "What I'm saying is I think it was Holloway who broke into the DoD and wrote the decryption program. Gillette stole it from him and used it because we asked him to."

"You think,"Bernstein had muttered cynically. "Well, I don't understand all this computer crap that's been going around." But he picked up the phone and called the U.S. attorney, who agreed to review whatever evidence CCU could offer supporting Bishop's theory before proceeding with charges against either Gillette or Bishop (both of whose stock was pretty high at the moment for having nailed the "Silicon Valley Kracker," as the local TV stations were describing Phate).

Agent Backle grudgingly returned to his office in San Francisco 's Presidio.

At the moment, however, the attention of all the law enforcers had turned from Phate and Stephen Miller to the MARINKILL case. Several bulletins reported that the killers had been spotted again – this time right next door, in San Jose – apparently staking out several other banks. Bishop and Shelton had been conscripted into the joint FBI/state police taskforce. They'd spend a few hours with their families for dinner and then report to the bureau's San Jose office later tonight.

Bob Shelton was home at the moment (his only farewell to Gillette had been a cryptic glance, whose meaning was completely lost on the hacker). Bishop, however, had delayed his own departure home and was sharing a Pop-Tart and coffee with the hacker while they waited for the troopers to arrive to transport him back to San Ho.

The phone rang. Bishop answered, "Computer Crimes."

He listened for a moment. "Hold on." He looked at Gillette, lifted an eyebrow. Handed the receiver to him. "It's for you."