"Yes."

"I'll call you then."

He bade me a polite but firm good night and then he was gone. I stared at the phone and wondered what the hell that was all about.

Sleep was out of the question. I spent most of the night on the Web, surfing through various city street cams, hoping to stumble across the right one. Talk about the high-tech needle in the worldwide haystack.

At some point, I stopped and slipped under the covers. Part of being a doctor is patience. I constantly give children tests that have life-altering – if not life-ending – implications and tell them and their parents to wait for the results. They have no choice. Perhaps the same could be said for this situation. There were too many variables right now. Tomorrow, when I logged in at Bigfoot under the Bat Street user name and Teenage password, I might learn more.

I stared up at the ceiling for a while. Then I looked to my right – where Elizabeth had slept. I always fell asleep first. I used to lie like this and watch her with a book, her face in profile, totally focused on whatever she was reading. That was the last thing I saw before my eyes closed and I drifted off to sleep.

I rolled over and faced the other way.

At four in the morning, Larry Gandle looked over the bleached blond locks of Eric Wu. Wu was incredibly disciplined. If he wasn't working on his physical prowess, he was in front of a computer screen. His complexion had turned a sickly blue-white several thousand Web surfs ago, but that physique remained serious cement.

"Well?" Gandle said.

Wu popped the headphones off. Then he folded his marble column arms across his chest. "I'm confused."

"Tell me."

"Dr. Beck has barely saved any of his emails. Just a few involving patients. Nothing personal. But then he gets two bizarre ones in the last two days." Still not turning from the screen, Eric Wu handed two pieces of paper over his bowling ball of a shoulder. Larry Gandle looked at the emails and frowned.

"What do they mean?"

"I don't know."

Gandle skimmed the message that talked about clicking something at "kiss time." He didn't understand computers – nor did he want to understand them. His eyes traveled back up to the top of the sheet and he read the subject.

E.P. + D.B. and a bunch of lines.

Gandle thought about it. D.B. David Beck maybe? And E.P…

The meaning landed on him like a dropped piano. He slowly handed the paper back to Wu.

"Who sent this?" Gandle asked.

"I don't know."

"Find out."

"Impossible," Wu said.

"Why?"

"The sender used an anonymous remailer." Wu spoke with a patient, almost unearthly monotone. He used that same tone while discussing a weather report or ripping off a man's cheek. "I won't go into the computer jargon, but there is no way to trace it back."

Gandle turned his attention to the other email, the one with the Bat Street and Teenage. He couldn't make head or tail out of it.

"How about this one? Can you trace it back?"

Wu shook his head. "Also an anonymous remailer."

"Did the same person send both?"

"Your guess would be as good as mine."

"How about the content? Do you understand what either one is talking about?"

Wu hit a few keys and the first email popped up on the monitor. He pointed a thick, veiny finger at the screen. "See that blue lettering there? It's a hyperlink All Dr. Beck had to do was click it and it would take him someplace, probably a Web site."

"What Web site?"

"It's a broken link. Again, you can't trace it back."

"And Beck was supposed to do this at 'kiss time'?"

"That's what it says."

"Is kiss time some sort of computer term?"

Wu almost grinned. "No."

"So you don't know what time the email refers to?"

"That's correct."

"Or even if we've passed kiss time or not?"

"It's passed," Wu said.

"How do you know?"

"His Web browser is set up to show you the last twenty sites he visited. He clicked the link. Several times, in fact."

"But you can't, uh, follow him there?"

"No. The link is useless."

"What about this other email?"

Wu hit a more few keys. The screen changed and the other email appeared. "This one is easier to figure out. It's very basic, as a matter of fact."

"Okay, I'm listening."

"The anonymous emailer has set up an email account for Dr. Beck," Wu explained. "He's given Dr. Beck a user name and a password and again mentioned kiss time."

"So let me see if I understand," Candle said. "Beck goes to some Web site. He types in that user name and that password and there'll be a message for him?"

"That's the theory, yes."

"Can we do it too?"

"Sign in using that user name and password?"

"Yes. And read the message."

"I tried it. The account doesn't exist yet."

"Why not?"

Eric Wu shrugged. "The anonymous sender might set up the account later. Closer to kiss time."

"So what can we conclude here?"

"Put simply" – the light from the monitor danced off Wu's blank eyes – "someone is going through a great deal of trouble to stay anonymous."

"So how do we find out who it is?"

Wu held up a small device that looked like something you might find in a transistor radio. "We've installed one of these on his home and work computers."

"What is it?"

"A digital network tracker. The tracker sends digital signals from his computers to mine. If Dr. Beck gets any emails or visits any Web sites or even if he just types up a letter, we'll be able to monitor it all in real time."

"So we wait and watch," Gandle said.

"Yes."

Gandle thought about what Wu had told him – about the lengths someone was going through to remain anonymous – and an awful suspicion started creeping into the pit of his belly.

I parked at the lot two blocks from the clinic. I never made it past block one.

Sheriff Lowell materialized with two men sporting buzz cuts and gray suits. The two men in suits leaned against a big brown Buick. Physical opposites. One was tall and thin and white, the other short and round and black; together they looked a little like a bowling ball trying to knock down the last pin. Both men smiled at me. Lowell did not.

"Dr. Beck?" the tall white pin said. He was impeccably groomed – gelled hair, folded hanky in the pocket, tie knotted with supernatural precision, tortoiseshell designer glasses, the kind actors wear when they want to look smart.

I looked at Lowell. He said nothing.

"Yes."

"I'm Special Agent Nick Carlson with the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the impeccably groomed one continued. "This is Special Agent Tom Stone."

They both flashed badges. Stone, the shorter and more rumpled of the two, hitched up his trousers and nodded at me. Then he opened the back door of the Buick.

"Would you mind coming with us?"

"I have patients in fifteen minutes," I said.

"We've already taken care of that." Carlson swept a long arm toward the car door, as though he were displaying a game show prize. "Please."

I got in the back. Carlson drove. Stone squeezed himself into the front passenger seat. Lowell didn't get in. We stayed in Manhattan, but the ride still took close to forty-five minutes. We ended up way downtown on Broadway near Duane Street. Carlson stopped the car in front of an office building marked 26 Federal Plaza.

The interior was basic office building. Men in suits, surprisingly nice ones, moved about with cups of designer coffee. There were women too, but they were heavily in the minority. We moved into a conference room. I was invited to sit, which I did. I tried crossing my legs, but that didn't feel right.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" I asked.