THE NEXT DAY Rachel hurried into my office, her face dark. She pointed to my computer. "Turn on the D.C. news channel."

I went to their Web site and called up the streaming video. The image of the female newscaster quickly filled the screen. Over her shoulder, superimposed on the screen, was a picture of Tinny Byrd. The reporter said, "Repeating our breaking story, the body has been found of the missing private investigator, Tinny Byrd. He had been reported missing by his wife late yesterday. His cell phone had been found in the possession of a homeless man near Union Station. His body has now been found, or I should say his remains. This is a grisly find by the Washington police and was unexpected. They had reports of unusual activity at a warehouse down by the Navy Yard, and when they investigated it, they found human remains in the corner of the dirt lot by the warehouse. The warehouse was guarded by two Doberman pinschers that had displaced some of the remains. The remains had been ground up in a meat grinder and tossed over the fence into the warehouse lot. It is thought that it was the intention of whoever murdered Mr. Byrd that the dogs would consume the remains, leaving no evidence. The dogs were not interested though, and when the owner came to the warehouse early this morning, he called the police. DNA evidence has confirmed that the remains are those of Mr. Byrd. It is unknown if his murder is linked to the work he was doing on one of his cases. He was working on several cases according to his wife, including a couple that involved notorious drug dealers in Washington, and also the investigation of Marine One for the attorney representing WorldCopter, the European manufacturer of the helicopter. The investigation into this brutal murder is ongoing." The reporter went on to another story and I turned off the television. I looked at Rachel, who looked ashen. She turned and ran out of the room.

I felt as sick to my stomach as she looked. Poor damned Tinny. My palms began to sweat as I tried to imagine what had happened. I knew there was no point. I'd never be able to know, and all it did was fill my head with unbearable images and thoughts. I wanted to go get one of my shotguns and find whoever had done this to him. He was my friend.

I sat down heavily in my chair, loosened my tie, put my head back, and closed my eyes.

I started getting paranoid. I worked on the case outside of the office when I had to do anything that really mattered. While at work, I did what everyone thought I should do, and after work I did the really critical things that I left at home.

Late one afternoon, I told Dolores I was running over to Starbucks to get a Frappuccino. While there, I called Wayne Bradley, Karl Will, and Rachel on my new cell. I told them I wanted them to come over to my house that night, and not to send me anything to my work e-mail account. All were puzzled, but agreed.

They arrived together just as Debbie and I were finishing dinner. We went into my den, which was built into what was the music room in the old house when we'd bought it. It was nearly as big as our family room.

Bradley looked uncomfortable. "What's with the new cell number?"

"I'm starting to see shadows. You guys heard about Byrd?"

They nodded. Will asked, "You think that has anything to do with this case?"

"Don't know. I'm sure going to assume so though. Which makes me crazy, just so you know. And I've had a couple of visits from the INR, State Department security."

"Huh?" Bradley asked, confused. "What would they have to do with Byrd?"

"Probably nothing. But they went to his house and then came to my office to meet with us. And basically threatened us. Lay off the Secret Service witness."

"What do they have to do with the Secret Service?"

"Yeah, good question. Don't know. Must have been some international thing. Other countries involved, diplomacy, something. And they really don't want it to come out. And there was some document that the guy had that he was thinking of giving to Byrd. The security guys have it now, whatever it was."

Will was considering the implications. "You're not saying they had anything to do with Byrd…"

"I really doubt it."

"I mean the news said he was investigating all kinds of cases. Drug cases, bad stuff…"

"He was. I don't know who did it. Maybe somebody else knew he was getting close to something."

"Like Hackett," Rachel said.

Bradley nearly choked. "You're not saying he'd do that, are you?"

"No. I'm not."

Rachel continued to let her imagination go. "Maybe the first lady called the State Department. I mean, who knows?"

"I don't trust anyone. And I mean no one. You've all got to be incredibly careful. Don't let anyone get close to you that you don't know. Check you car for bombs-"

"Are you serious? How are we supposed to do that?"

"I don't really know. I shouldn't have said that. I'm not really checking… just use caution."

"That's why we're meeting here?" Bradley said, looking around the den.

"Yes, and somebody's reading my mail. My e-mail."

"What?" he said, leaning back on the leather couch. "Seriously?"

"Somebody has set up a tunnel through my server so all my e-mails are forwarded. Very sophisticated."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"Me neither. So whatever you get from me at work, phone, e-mail, whatever, won't mean shit. Only when we're here, or on my new cell."

Will breathed deeply without saying anything. He started looking around the room. "If they're smart enough to tap your e-mail, what makes you think they haven't bugged your house?"

"I had it scanned."

"What about your office?"

"I don't want to tip anyone off. Maybe when we get close to trial. When I figure out how to use it all to my advantage."

Will said quietly, "Shit, Mike. Somebody really doesn't want you to win this case."

"They may not care about the case. But they may really care if they get exposed. And they see the two as linked, because they are. Problem is they know what happened and we don't."

"So what did you want to talk about?"

I was glad to get to the facts. I could deal with that. Build a case, gather evidence, and get ready for trial. "I want you two to go back out to the site with me. I've been thinking about my last time out there. I've got an idea."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you later."

"Why later?"

"After your deposition. I want Hackett to hear your opinions and think they're unremarkable."

Bradley said, "That shouldn't be too hard right now."

"If what I'm thinking about has any merit to it, I don't want them to know about it until it's too late."

"Is that kosher?"

"Right now it's just a thought in my head."

"All right. We'll just criticize the report and not give them much of a theory of our defense."

"Exactly. Did you get your animation done, Karl?"

"It's on my computer if you want to see it."

"Absolutely."

Karl had a large Apple laptop. He opened it up and put it on the coffee table in front of Bradley. He called up the file. He said, "I took the animation from WorldCopter based on the flight data recorder and CVR and filled in the blanks. I had a surveyor get us the heights of all the significant trees and got the terrain-contour information from the USGS charts of the area." He started the animation. "If you watch here, I've gotten the bugs out of some of the data." He pointed. "See, right there, the helicopter starts down. We can't tell why from any of the data. So I just had it tumble to the ground and had the blade come off as it broke through the trees-"

"Stop it," I said as the helicopter plunged down through the trees in a frighteningly lifelike animation. "Why there? If the NTSB's theory is right, the blade came off much earlier and just landed there coincidentally."