Chapter 42

IT WAS FOUR by the time I left Berkeley and made it back to the office. My secretary, Brenda, happened to catch me in the hallway. "You've got two messages from A.D.A. Bernhardt, but don't get comfortable. The boss is asking for you upstairs."

As I knocked on Tracchio's door, a meeting of the Emer-gency Task Force was already under way. I wasn't surprised to see Tom Roach, from the local FBI. They'd been all over things since Cindy got the e-mail that morning. Plus Gabe Carr, the deputy mayor in charge of police affairs, and Steve Fiori, the press liaison¹.

And someone with his back to me whom I didn't recog-nize: dark, with thick brown hair, solidly built. The guy had advance team for the G-8 meeting stamped all over him. Here we go, antacid lovers.

I nodded to the guys I had worked with, a quick glance toward the suit I didn't know. "You want to bring everyone up to date, Lieutenant²?" the Chief said.

"Sure," I said, nodding. My stomach churned. I hadn't exactly prepped for a presentation. I had the feeling I was being set up, Tracchio-style.

"A lot of things are pointing toward Berkeley," I explained. I ran off the key angles we were working. Wendy Raymore, the demonstration³ today, Lemouz.

"You think this guy's involved?" Tracchio asked. "He's a professor, right?"

"I ran his name and it came back with nothing deeper than a couple of unlawful demonstrations⁴ and resisting arrests," I said. "Both dropped. He's harmless. Or he's very, very smart."

"Any trace on the taggants in the C-4?" Tracchio asked. It felt as if he was trying to make points with the Fed in the tan suit. Who the heck was he anyway?

"It's with ATF," I said.

"And these people keep communicating on these public e-mail ports to threaten us," he said.

"What do you want us to do, stake out every public-access computer in the Bay Area?" I asked. "You know how many we're talking, Chief?"

"Two thousand one hundred and seventy-nine," the Fed in the suit suddenly chimed in. He flipped⁵ a sheet of paper. "Two thousand one hundred and seventy-nine public-access Internet access portals in the Bay Area, depending on how they're defined. Colleges, libraries, caf俿, airports. That in-cludes two in army recruiting centers in San Jose, but I don't think they'll try there, if that narrows it down at all."

"Yeah," I said as our eyes finally met, "that starts to nar-row it down."

"Sorry." The man rubbed his temples and relaxed into a tired smile. "I just got off a plane from Madrid twenty min-utes ago, expecting to check through some security details for the G-8 next week. Now I'm wondering if I suddenly find myself in the middle of the Third World War."

"Lindsay Boxer," I said.

"I know who you are," the Fed replied. "You worked that La Salle Heights church bombing last year. People in Justice took note. Any chance we can contain these people in the next week?"

"Contain?" The word had a Clancy-esque sound to it.

"Let's not play games, Lieutenant. We have a meeting of the heads of finance of the Free World coming here. Plus a threat to the public safety, and like the Chief said, we don't have much time."

There was a directness about this guy I liked. Not the usual Washington type.

"So everything's still on?" Gabe Carr, the mayor's deputy, asked.

"On?" The Washington man looked around the room. "The locations are secure, right? We have adequate man-power, don't we, Chief?"

"Every uniformed man on the force at your disposal next week." Tracchio's eyes lit up.

I cleared my throat. "What about the e-mail we received? What do we do with it?"

"What do you want to do with it, Inspector⁶?" the Wash-ington guy asked.

My throat was dry. "I want to answer it," I said. "I want to start a dialogue. Map out the contact points they respond from. See if they divulge⁷ something. The more we talk, the more they might reveal...."

There was one of those sticky, protracted⁸ silences, and I was hoping I wasn't about to be shoved off this case.

"Right answer." The federal agent winked⁹ at me. "No need for all the melodrama¹⁰, I just wanted to see who I was working with. Joe Molinari," he said, smiling, and pushed across his card.

As I read it, as hard as I tried not to change my expression, my heart picked up a beat, maybe a couple of beats.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, the card read. JOSEPH P. MOLINARI. DEPUTY DIRECTOR.

Shit, this guy was all the way up!

"Let's start a dialogue with these bastards," said the deputy director.

1 liaison   

n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通

参考例句：

• She acts as a liaison between patients and staff.她在病人与医护人员间充当沟通的桥梁。
• She is responsible for liaison with researchers at other universities.她负责与其他大学的研究人员联系。

2 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。

3 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

4 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

5 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

6 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

7 divulge   

v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布

参考例句：

• They refused to divulge where they had hidden the money.他们拒绝说出他们把钱藏在什么地方。
• He swore never to divulge the secret.他立誓决不泄露秘密。

8 protracted   

adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The war was protracted for four years. 战争拖延了四年。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We won victory through protracted struggle. 经过长期的斗争，我们取得了胜利。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 winked   

v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• He winked at her and she knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. 他冲她眨了眨眼，她便知道他的想法和她一样。
• He winked his eyes at her and left the classroom. 他向她眨巴一下眼睛走出了教室。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 melodrama   

n.音乐剧；情节剧

参考例句：

• We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演！
• White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧，但也有不少插科打诨。