Gragg turned off the car and looked at Heider's dozing form. He quietly pulled a piece of paper from his own jacket pocket and glanced at the code number written on it in pen. He took his car keys from the ignition and carefully slipped them into Heider's pocket. It wasn't difficult. In fact, he hoped he could still rouse Heider, who was out cold.

He nudged him. No response. He shoved Heider. Then finally shook him. "Heider, man! Wake up."

Heider awoke slowly, still high out of his mind. "What the fuck, man?"

"I need you to pick up the new encryption key from my contact. He's in there." He pointed.

Heider squinted and looked back at him like he was insane. "Fuck you, man. You go."

"Heider. Take a look around you. I'm not leaving my car sitting out here-and you'll fall asleep the minute I'm gone. You know what I put into this ride?"

"Well, then why the fuck did you park a mile away, asshole?"

"A semi was just in the loading dock."

"I don't know who your fucking contact is."

"Just give them this code number." Gragg handed him the piece of paper. "They won't even ask who you are. You're just picking up the code."

Heider wavered fuzzily, trying to process what Gragg just said.

Gragg sighed impatiently. "Christ, Jase, why do I have to do everything? I arranged the business; I keep you supplied with new gear-and I got you laid tonight."

Heider conceded this by nodding reluctantly.

"When are you gonna start pulling your weight, man?"

Heider squinted at the two dumpy middle-aged Asians smoking and chatting two hundred feet away.

Gragg pointed. "Oh, they sure look dangerous."

"Fuck…all right. Just don't do this shit to me without telling me first, man. I don't like surprises." Heider exchanged a last serious look with Gragg. Gragg just rolled his eyes. Heider sighed and got out.

Gragg watched Heider stagger down the street toward the lighted factory door less than a football field away. Once Heider was gone, Gragg grabbed his own backpack and quietly got out of the car. He slipped behind two Dumpsters and from the darkness watched Heider approach the men.

The Asian men watched impassively as Heider labored up to them. Heider said something and handed the piece of paper to the nearest guy. After reading it, the man pointed toward the open doorway. Heider walked through and stood silhouetted for a moment before one of the men walked in after him and shoved him forward. The other man scanned the street, threw his cigarette to the ground, and then walked inside-pulling the doors shut behind him. They closed with a resounding bang, leaving the street dark and quiet.

Gragg knelt down, shivering now in the cold autumn air. He waited for about a half hour before he heard the doors open again. Footsteps clacked across the pavement, heading his way. Gragg knew that Heider never wore anything that could remotely clack on pavement. So he hunkered down as a younger Filipino in slacks and a sport coat walked past the opening between the Dumpsters. Gragg heard his own car alarm chirp off, and the man got inside. He started the car up, raced the engine a bit, and then peeled off in a wild, squealing U-turn back down the street.

Gragg slumped down against the brick wall behind the Dumpsters. He felt the cold of the brick seep into his back.

Maybe he shouldn't have hacked the Filipino's Web server. Why couldn't he have left well enough alone? How had they caught on?

Damn! They got my car.Thank God it was registered under a false name.

Gragg sighed and took out his GPS receiver. He found the nearest cross street on the map, then flipped open his phone and selected a saved number. After a few rings, it picked up.

"Yeah, I need a cab."

Jon Ross raced his Audi A8 sedan onto the Alcyone Insurance corporate campus, then quickly slowed down as he noticed several police cruisers and unmarked cars near the lobby doors. He turned down his music-a relentlessly pounding techno track-and motored at a more civilized speed past the squad cars. Interesting. No flashing lights, though.

Ross headed for the parking garage.

In a few minutes his voice was echoing across the granite-floored lobby as he approached the security desk. "Hey, Alejandro."

Alejandro smiled. "Jon, my boy. How're you doin' tonight?"

Ross swiped his consultant's badge and signed the after-hours access list. "What's with the police cars?"

"Oh, there was a computer break-in. The cops are down in the data center."

Ross stopped writing. He looked up. "A break-in?"

"Yeah. It's something, what these people can do. It's all computers nowadays." Alejandro leaned closer to Ross. "Ted Wynnik was askin' about you. I won't tell nobody I saw you if you want to clear out."

Ross finished signing in. He smiled. "Thanks, but not necessary. It was probably some twelve-year-old kid."

Ross headed down the clean white corridor of B2. Soon he reached the accounting department's data center and slid his badge through the reader. The door clicked open, and he moved briskly toward his office at the far wall. Then he slowed. The lights were on in his office. He forced himself not to stop and instead resumed a normal walking pace.

He opened his office door and was greeted by the sight of two severely groomed men in inexpensive suits and comfortable shoes sitting on the edge of his desk. One was a Latino, the other Caucasian, but they shared the same humorless expression. Hadi Sarkar, the night-shift data center supervisor, sat at Ross's keyboard, pecking away behind them. He turned somewhat sheepishly to face Ross.

One of the clean-cut men reached into his jacket and withdrew credentials, which he flipped open. "Jonathan Ross?"

"Yes?"

"I'm Special Agent Straub. This is Special Agent Vasquez. We'd like to ask you a few questions about last night. Your colleague, Hadi here, has been able to shed some light on things, but he tells us you're the real expert."

Ross glared at Sarkar and put his laptop case down on the desk. "I'm happy to help any way I can. What's all this about?"

"You were present in Alcyone's data center last night?"

"I was working under contract for another department, but Hadi requested my help. His development servers had become infected with what appeared to be a kernel rootkit."

"And you have experience with computer viruses?"

Ross paused. He had to be careful here. "Look, I'm a database consultant. Computer security is part of my job. I know what I need to know."

"Why did you make Hadi and his coworkers promise not to tell anyone about your help?"

"Because I was breaking the rules to help Hadi. That endangered my contract here. I made that clear to him."

"So you were asking Hadi to lie on your behalf?"

"I was asking him not to tell people that I was doing his job."

Sarkar jumped in. "I was requesting advice merely, Jon."

Ross folded his arms. "Hadi, your exact words were that you had tried everything you could think of and wanted my help." He turned back to Agent Straub. "A rogue process somewhere in his data center was broadcasting packets to the Web last night. Hadi couldn't find it. The process was incredibly stealthy-possibly a kernel rootkit."

Sarkar shook his head emphatically. "There is no way to hide the source of network traffic, Jon. I told you this."

"Well, the test bed servers were definitely involved. Test servers are usually the weakest on security. They have beta software and they're frequently reconfigured. So I had Hadi kill Icarus servers one through ten, and the packet broadcast stopped-even though it wasn't supposed to be originating from there."

Agent Straub nodded, taking notes. "So you knew right where to look, then…"