Kat jerks herself back to one side, but whoever is wielding the flashlight doesn’t appear to be interested in looking her way. She can see him, a male of average height, holding the flashlight and moving the beam to a four-drawer filing cabinet.

There’s no doubt in her mind what’s happening. He moves quickly toward the cabinet like he’s been there before, and she can see he’s carrying something metallic. He focuses the light on the cabinet lock on the upper left-hand corner and tries to balance the flashlight between chin and shoulder while he uses what looks like a small kitchen knife and perhaps an ice pick to spring the lock.

The man appears to be alone and she watches his ham-handed fumbling with the lock.

This is not a professional thief,she concludes, unsurprised. Whoever he is, he’s got a stake in getting rid of the evidence Dawson talked about.

The man reaches a breaking point and throws the makeshift tools to the floor in disgust, looking back and forth around the room as if the key might be hanging within reach if he could just take the time to spot it.

The desk catches his eye and he moves to it, flashlight beam on the top drawer as he rummages through it, pulling it out steadily until it suddenly falls to the floor. He’s on his hands and knees now, frantically sorting through the contents, then coming up with a key. He leaps to his feet, racing back to the file cabinet but can’t insert it.

Wrong key, boy,she thinks, calculating which way he’s likely to leave if he achieves his objective. In the reflected beam of the flashlight when it hits his face every few moments she can see he’s a Caucasian male, perhaps in his fifties, and moderately overweight.

He’s back on his knees rifling through the contents of the fallen desk drawer, and Kat can see the flashlight beam shaking in his trembling left hand.

Scared to death. Probably never had more than a traffic ticket, and probably not armed.

Another key! He’s back up and over to the file cabinet and this time the lock springs open. She can hear his small victory yelp even through the window as he yanks open the drawers successively until finding the one he’s looking for.

FBI procedures and common sense dictate calling for police backup and intercepting the suspect as he leaves, and she reaches for her cell to dial 911 the same moment a bright light snaps on from behind and an excited male voice orders her to freeze.

“POLICE! GET THOSE HANDS UP!”

Kat can see the man inside the den turn, startled, a folder in his hand as he yanks it from the drawer and snaps off his light. She can see him bolting to the rear door in the den, fumbling with the knob and the lock, and she turns quickly, raising her hands as she sidesteps toward the corner of the house.

“Turn that light out! I’m an FBI agent!”

“KEEP YOUR HANDS UP!”

She glances back through the window, aware the intruder is still struggling with security locks and frantic to get out. She has only seconds, she figures, to calm the cop down.

She looks back at the bright light in her face.

“There’s a suspect in that house and we don’t have time for this. I’m going to pull out my ID wallet! Keep your trigger finger under control!”

“KEEP THOSE HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! DID YOU HEAR ME?”

She pulls the ID wallet from her jacket pocket with two fingers, bringing it out laterally and flipping it open as she hears the back door being flung wide.

“Hold it right there!” the cop is saying to Kat, his voice more uncertain now as he gingerly approaches, surprised and unprepared for her to turn around and yell toward the back of the house while still thrusting the ID wallet at him.

“FEDERAL AGENTS! FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR! NOW!”

“What… what are you doing?” Jimmy Gonzalez asks, his gun still leveled at his suspect as he tries to read the ID at the same time he’s trying to see who she’s yelling at.

“GET THOSE HANDS IN THE AIR, MISTER! NOW! ON YOUR KNEES OR I’LL SHOOT! DROP THAT FOLDER!”

Kat looks back to Gonzalez in a lightning move.

“Satisfied?”

“I… guess.”

“Here’s my ID. Toss me your light.”

“What?”

“NOW!”

He tosses the SureFire to her, watching as she catches it and tosses him the ID wallet, covering the distance between the corner of the house and the obviously frightened man kneeling by the backdoor in a few heartbeats. She covers the suspect with a 9mm Glock Jimmy never saw her unholster.

“Officer? Bring your cuffs, please.”

Jimmy responds as quickly as he can, cuffing the man as he notes the business suit and the balding head.

“Don’t shoot! I’m a friend of Kip’s! I have a key!”

“But not to his filing cabinet, it appears,” Kat says. “What’s in the folder?”

“Ah, private company information.”

“Right. Half the world read exactly what you read about a particular folder with a rubber band and a red exclamation point in the file cabinet you just broke into.”

“Kip asked me to protect this if anything ever happened to him.”

“Sure he did. What’s your name?”

No answer.

“NAME! NOW!”

“Ah… Robert Wilson.”

“How did you get in the house?”

“I have a key. I’m authorized.”

“All right, Mr. Wilson, you’re also under arrest on suspicion of obstruction of justice in a federal case, for starters. Officer?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please Mirandize this gentleman after you finish cuffing him, and then get us some backup while the rest of my team gets here.”

“Okay.”

She turns to Jimmy Gonzalez now, asking his name, and he responds as he hands her back the ID wallet.

“Good job, Officer Gonzalez. All the way around.”

Matt Coleman is aware tonight’s broadcast could be the definitive performance of his career. He checks his appearance, wondering why anyone would think he looks like the late Johnny Carson, although he considers it one hell of a compliment. At age forty-seven, with a full head of prematurely silver hair, a neutral Midwest accent, and a natural smile, there are a few similarities. But he understands that the comparison is the wishful thinking of a vast audience hungry for the more serious approach and occasionally sharp-witted humor he’s made a trademark since he took over from Larry King, building his now-syndicated evening news, comment, and interview show far beyond the confines of CNN to span American broadcast and worldwide broadcast networks, as well as cable and Internet outlets.

And tonight—broadcasting in high definition to an estimated combined world audience of at least a hundred million people with simultaneous translation in sixteen languages, he can either own the story of Kip Dawson by walking a razor-sharp line between commentary and reportage, or end up as just another conduit for what’s happening.

And Matt Coleman intends to own the story.

Tonight the computerized reassembly of his image will have him appearing for all the world as if he’s actually standing in three different world capitals, complete with a shadow where the sun is shining. He takes his place for the opening against a live shot of Intrepidbeing downlinked from a high-powered NASA camera in orbit.

Good evening, and right to the point. Seldom has the story of one person dominated our worldwide attention for more than a few moments in this frenetic modern life. When that rare event does happen, however, usually it’s after an event is over. Not so in the case of Kip Dawson. Tonight, I’ll guide you through the significance of what’s been occurring, not only some three hundred and ten miles above us on orbit, but on Earth, too, as an ordinary man—an ordinary husband and father named Kip Dawson—unknowingly communicates to an amazing number of his fellow humans in real time in ways simultaneously complex, simple, and profound.