Chapter 28

WE CALLED IN EVERYONE now. The Metropolitan¹ Med-ical Task Force. The Bureau of Public Safety. The local office of the FBI. We weren't talking murder any longer. This was terrorism.

The trail for the missing au pair had gone cold. Jacobi and Cappy had come back empty after passing her photo around the campus bars across the bay. One thing did pan out, though: the article Cindy put in the Chronicle on X/L. With news crews plastered all over their offices and the threat of a subpoena², I got a message from Chuck Zinn that he wanted to deal. An hour later, he was in my office.

"You can have your access, Lieutenant³. In fact, I'll save you the trouble. Mort did receive a series of e-mails in the past few weeks. The entire board did. None of us took them very seriously, but we put our internal security team on it."

Zinn unbuckled his fancy leather case and placed an orange file on the table and pushed it across. "This is all of them, Lieutenant. By date received."

I opened the file and a shock resonated through my system.

To the Board of Directors, X/L Systems:

On February 15, Morton Lightower, your CEO, sold 762,000 shares of his company stock total-ing $3,175,000.

On that same day, some 256,000 of your own shareholders⁴ lost money, making their net return -87% in the past year.

35,341 children of the world died from star-vation.

11,174 people in this country died from disease that were deemed "preventable" with proper medical care.

That same Wednesday, 4233768 mothers -brought babies into conditions of poverty and hopelessness across the world. In the past 24 months, you have sold off almost $600,000,000 of your own company stock and purchased homes in Aspen and France, returning nothing to the world. We are demand-ing contributions to hunger and world health organizations equal to any further sell-offs. We are demanding that the board of X/L, and the boards of all companies, see beyond the narrow scope of its expansionist strategies to the world beyond, which is being crushed by eco-nomic apartheid.

This is not a plea. This is a demand.

Enjoy your wealth, Mr. Lightower. Your little Caitlin is counting on you.

The message was signed, August Spies.

I skimmed through the rest of the e-mails. Each was more belligerent⁵. The menu of the world's ills more grievous.

You're ignoring us, Mr. Lightower. The board has not complied. We intend to act. Your little Caitlin is counting on you.

"How could you not turn these over to us?" I stared at Zinn. "This whole thing might have been prevented."

"In retrospect⁶, I understand how this must appear." The lawyer hung his head. "But companies receive threats all the time."

"This isn't just a threat." I tossed the e-mails back on my desk. "It's extortion, coercion⁷. You're a lawyer, Zinn. The ref-erence to his daughter is a blatant⁸ threat. You came in here to deal, Mr. Zinn. Here it is: This doesn't get out. The name on these e-mails stays between us. But we send in our own team to ascertain⁹ where they originated from."

"I understand." The lawyer nodded sheepishly, handing over the file.

I skimmed over the e-mail addresses. Footsy123@ hotmail.com. [email protected]. Both signed the same. August Spies. I turned to Jacobi. "What do you think, War-ren? Can we trace these?"

"We already put them through our own investigation," Zinn volunteered.

"You traced them." I looked up, shocked.

"We're an e-traffic security company. All of them are free Internet providers. No user billing address. Nothing needed to open an account. You could go to the library, the airport, anywhere there's an open-access online terminal and open one yourself. This one was sent from a kiosk at the Oakland airport. This one from a Kinko's near Berkeley on University. These two, from the public library. They're untraceable."

I figured Zinn knew his stuff and was right, but one thing did jump out at me. The Kinko's, the library, the real Wendy Raymore's apartment.

"We may not know who they are, but we know where they are."

"The People's Republic of Berkeley," Jacobi said, and sniffed¹⁰. "Well, I'll be."

1 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

2 subpoena   

n.（法律）传票；v.传讯

参考例句：

• He was brought up to court with a subpoena.他接到传讯，来到法庭上。
• Select committees have the power to subpoena witnesses.特别委员会有权传唤证人。

3 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

4 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

5 belligerent   

adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者

参考例句：

• He had a belligerent aspect.他有种好斗的神色。
• Our government has forbidden exporting the petroleum to the belligerent countries.我们政府已经禁止向交战国输出石油。

6 retrospect   

n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯

参考例句：

• One's school life seems happier in retrospect than in reality.学校生活回忆起来显得比实际上要快乐。
• In retrospect,it's easy to see why we were wrong.回顾过去就很容易明白我们的错处了。

7 coercion   

n.强制，高压统治

参考例句：

• Neither trickery nor coercion is used to secure confessions.既不诱供也不逼供。
• He paid the money under coercion.他被迫付钱。

8 blatant   

adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的

参考例句：

• I cannot believe that so blatant a comedy can hoodwink anybody.我无法相信这么显眼的一出喜剧能够欺骗谁。
• His treatment of his secretary was a blatant example of managerial arrogance.他管理的傲慢作风在他对待秘书的态度上表露无遗。

9 ascertain   

vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清

参考例句：

• It's difficult to ascertain the coal deposits.煤储量很难探明。
• We must ascertain the responsibility in light of different situtations.我们必须根据不同情况判定责任。

10 sniffed   

v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣，吸了吸鼻子，擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》