Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories, Volume 3

FAST A Kathryn Dance story

They were just about to see the octopus when she received a text alerting her that two hundred people were going to die in two hours.

Kathryn Dance rarely received texts marked with exclamation points — the law enforcement community tended not to punctuate with emotion — so she read it immediately. Then called her office, via speed dial three.

“Boss,” the young man’s voice spilled from her iPhone.

“Details, TJ?”

Over their heads:

“Will the ticket holders for the one-thirty exhibition make their way inside, please.”

“Mom!” The little girl’s voice was urgent. “That’s us.”

“Hold on a second, honey.” Then into the phone: “Go on.”

TJ Scanlon said, “Sorry, Boss, this’s bad. On the wire from up north.”

“Mom…”

“Let me talk, Mags.”

“Long story short, Alameda was monitoring this domestic separatist outfit, planning an attack up there.”

“I know. Brothers of Liberty, based in Oakland, white supremacists, antigovernment. Osmond Carter, their leader, was arrested last week and they threatened retaliation if he’s not released.”

“You knew that?”

“You read the statewide dailies, TJ?”

“Mean to.”

“…the Monterey Bay Aquarium is pleased to host the largest specimen of Enteroctopus dofleini on exhibit in the northern California area, weighing in at a hundred and twenty-one pounds! We know you’re going to enjoy viewing our visiting guest in his specially created habitat.”

“Okay. What’s the story?” Dance persisted into the phone as she and her children edged closer to the exhibit hall. They’d waited forty-five minutes. Who would have thought octopuses, octopi, would be such a big draw?

TJ said, “Everybody believed they were going to hit somewhere up there, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Fran, but maybe there was too much heat. Oakland PD had a CI inside the group and he said two of their people came down here, set up something. And—”

She interrupted. “‘Set up something.’ What does that mean?”

“An attack of some kind. He doesn’t know what exactly. Maybe an IED, maybe chemical. Probably not bio but could be. But the number of victims is for sure, what I texted you. Two hundred plus or minus. That’s confirmed. And whatever it is, it’s up and running; the perps set it and they were headed back. The CI said four p.m. is when the attack goes down.”

Two and a half hours. A little less. Lord…

“No idea of the victims, location?”

TJ Scanlon offered, “None.”

“But you said they ‘were’ headed back.”

“Right, we caught a break. There’s a chance we can nail ’em. The CI gave us the make of the car — a 2000 Taurus, light blue. CHP spotted one in Marina and went after it. The driver took off. Probably them. They lost the pursuit on surface roads. Everybody’s searching the area. Bureau’s coming in from the field office. Hold on, Boss. I’m getting something.”

Dance happened to glance up and see her reflection in the glass panel on the other side of which elegant and eerie sea horses floated with sublime, careless ease. Dance noted her own still gaze looking back at her, in a narrow, Cate Blanchett face, hair in a ponytail, held taut by a black-and-green scrunchy installed that morning by her ten-year-old daughter, currently champing beside her. Her mop-headed son, Wes, twelve, was detached from mother and sister. He was less intrigued by cephalopods, however big, and more by an aloof fourteen-year-old in line, a girl who should have been a cheerleader if she wasn’t.

Dance was wearing jeans, a blue silk blouse and a tan quilted vest, comfortably warm. Sunny at the moment, the Monterey Peninsula could be quite fickle when it came to weather. Fog mostly.

“Mom, they’re calling us,” Maggie said in her weegee voice, the high pitch that conveyed exasperation really well.

“One minute, this’s important.”

“First, it was a second. Now it’s a minute. Jeez. One one-thousand, two one-thousand…”

Wes was smiling toward, but not at, the cheerleader.

The line inched forward, drawing them seductively closer to the Cephalopod of the Century.

TJ came back on the line. “Boss, yep, it’s them. The Taurus’s registered to the Brothers of Liberty. CHP’s in pursuit.”

“Where?”

“Seaside.”

Dance glanced around her at the dim concrete-and-glass aquarium. It was holiday break — ten days before Christmas — and the place was packed. And there were dozens of tourist attractions like this in the area, not to mention movie theaters, churches and offices. Some schools were closed but others not. Was the plan to leave a bomb in, say, that trash can out front? She said into the phone, “I’ll be right in.” Turning to the children, she grimaced at their disappointed faces. She had a theory — possibly unfounded — that her two children were more sensitive to disappointment than other kids their age because they were fatherless…and because Bill had died suddenly. There in the morning, and then never again. It was so very hard for her to say what she now had to: “Sorry, guys. It’s a big problem at work.”

“Aw, Mom!” Maggie grumbled. “This is the last day! It’s going to San Diego tomorrow.” Wes, too, was disappointed, though part of this wasn’t sea life but pretty cheerleaders.

“Sorry, guys. Can’t be helped. I’ll make it up to you.” Dance held the phone back to her ear and she said firmly to TJ, “And tell everybody: No shooting unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t want either of them killed.”

Which brought conversation around them in the octopus line to a complete stop. Everyone stared.

Speaking to the wide-eyed blonde, Wes said reassuringly, “It’s okay. She says that a lot.”

The venue for the party was good. The Monterey Bay Seaside Motel was near the water, north of the city. And what was especially nice about this place was that unlike a lot of banquet rooms this one had large windows opening onto a stretch of beach.

Right now, Carol Messner noted, the beach had that December afternoon look to it: bleached, dusty, though the haze was mostly mist with a bit of fog thrown in. Not so focused, but, hey, a beach view beat a Highway 1 view any day, provided the sun held.

“Hal,” she said to her associate. “You think we need more tables over there? It looks empty.”

Carol, president of the local branch of the California Central Coast Bankers’ Association, was a woman in her sixties, a grandmother several times over. Although her employer was one of the larger chain banks that had misbehaved a bit a few years ago, she’d had no part of mortgage-backed securities; she firmly believed banks did good. She wouldn’t have been in the business if she didn’t think that. She was living proof of the beneficence of the world of finance. Carol and her husband had comfortable retirement funds thanks to banks, her daughter and son-in-law had expanded their graphic arts business and made it successful thanks to banks, her grandsons would be going to Stanford and UC-Davis next fall thanks to student loans.

The earth revolved around money, but that was a good thing — far better than guns and battleships — and she was happy and proud to be a part of the process. The diminutive, white-haired woman wouldn’t have been in the business for forty-six years if she’d felt otherwise.

Hal Reskin, her second-in-command at the CCCBA, was a heavyset man with a still face, a lawyer specializing in commercial paper and banking law. He eyed the corner she pointed at and agreed. “Asymmetrical,” he said. “Can’t have that.”

Carol tried not to smile. Hal took everything he did quite seriously and was a far better i-dotter than she. “Asymmetrical” would be a sin, possibly mortal.

She walked up to the two motel employees who were organizing the room for the Christmas party, which would last from three to five today, and asked that they move several of the round ten-tops to cover the bald spot on the banquet room floor. The men hefted the tables and rearranged them.

Hal nodded.

Carol said, “De-asymmetricalized.”

Her vice president laughed. Taking his tasks seriously didn’t mean he was missing a sense of humor.

Hal took the room in. “Looks good to me. Double-check the sound system. Then we’ll get the decorations up.”

“The PA?” she asked. “I tried it yesterday. It was fine.” But being the i-dotting banker that she was, Carol walked to the stage and flicked on the PA system.

Nothing.

A few more flicks of the off-on toggle.

As if that would do any good.

“This could be a problem.”

Carol followed the cord but it disappeared below the stage.

“Maybe those workers,” Hal said, peering at the microphones.

“Who?”

“Those two guys who were here a half hour ago. Maybe before you got here?”

“No, I didn’t see anybody. José and Miguel?” she asked, nodding at the men on the motel staff, now setting up chairs.

“No, other ones. They asked if this is where the banking meeting was going to be. I told them yes and they said they had to make some repairs under the stage. They were under there for a few minutes, then they left.”

She asked the two motel workers in the corner, “Did you hear that there was a problem with the sound system?”

“No, ma’am. Maria, Guest Services, she handle everything with the microphones and all that. She said it was fine this morning. But she off now.”

“Where are those other workers?” Carol asked. After receiving blank stares, she explained what Hal had told her.

“I don’t know who they’d be, ma’am. We’re the ones, José and me, who set up the rooms.”

Walking toward the access door to the stage, Hal said, “I’ll take a look.”

“You know electronics?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I set up my grandson’s Kinect with his Xbox. All by my little ole lonesome.”

Carol had no idea what he was talking about but he said it with such pride she had to smile. She held open the access door as he descended beneath the stage. “Good luck.”

Three minutes later the PA system came on with a resonant click through the speakers.

Carol applauded.

Hal appeared and dusted off his hands. “Those guys earlier, they knocked the cord loose when they were under there. We’ll have to keep an eye out, they don’t do it again. I think they’ll be back.”

“Really?”

“Maybe. They left a toolbox and some big bottles down there. Cleaner, I guess.”

“Okay. We’ll keep an eye out.” But the workmen were gone from Carol’s mind. Decorations had to be set up, food had to be arranged. She wanted the room to be as nice as possible for the two hundred CCCBA members who’d been looking forward to the party for months.

A stroke of luck…and good policing.

The CHP had collared the Brothers of Liberty perps.

Kathryn Dance, who’d dropped the disgruntled children off with her parents in Carmel, was standing in the weedy parking lot of an outlet mall only six miles from the California Bureau of Investigation’s Monterey Office, where she worked. Michael O’Neil now approached. He looked like a character from a John Steinbeck novel, maybe Doc in Cannery Row. Although the uniform of the MCSO was typical county sheriff’s khaki, Chief Detective O’Neil usually dressed soft — today in sports coat and tan slacks and blue dress shirt, no tie. His hair was salt-and-pepper and his brown eyes, beneath lids that dipped low, moved slowly as he explained the pursuit and collar. His physique was solid and his arms very strong — though not from working out in a gym (that was amusing to him) but from muscling salmon and other delicacies into his boat in Monterey Bay every chance he got.

O’Neil was taciturn by design and his face registered little emotion, but with Dance he could usually be counted on to crack a wry joke or banter.

Not now. He was all business.

A fellow CBI agent, massive shaved-headed Albert Stemple, stalked up and O’Neil explained to him and Dance how the perps had been caught.

The fastest way out of the area was on busy Highway 1 north, to 156, then to 101, which would take the suspected terrorists directly back to their nest in Oakland. That route was where the bulk of the searchers had been concentrating — without any success.

But an inventive young Highway Patrol officer had asked himself how would he leave the area, if he knew his mission was compromised. He decided the smartest approach would be to take neighborhood and single-lane roads all the way to Highway 5, several hours away. And so he concentrated on small avenues like Jacks and Oil Well and — this was the luck part — he spotted the perps near this strip mall, which was close to Highway 68, the Monterey-Salinas Highway.

The trooper had called in backup then lit ’em up.

After a twenty-minute high-speed pursuit, the perps skidded into the mall, sped around back and vanished, but the trooper decided they were trying a feint. He didn’t head in the same direction they were; instead, he squealed to a stop and waited beside a Tires Plus operation.

After five excessively tense minutes, the Brothers of Liberty had apparently decided they’d misled the pursuit and sped out the way they’d come in, only to find the trooper had anticipated them. He floored the cruiser, equipped with ram bars, and totaled the Taurus. The perps bailed.

The trooper tackled and hog-tied one. The other galloped toward a warehouse area three or four hundred yards away, just as backup arrived. There was a brief exchange of gunfire and the second perp, wounded, was collared, too. Several CHP officers and a colleague of Dance’s at the CBI, TJ Scanlon, were at that scene.

Now, at the outlet mall, the perp who’d been tackled, one Wayne Keplar, regarded Dance, Stemple and O’Neil and the growing entourage of law enforcers.

“Nice day for an event,” Keplar said. He was a lean man, skinny, you could say. Parentheses of creases surrounded his mouth and his dark, narrow-set eyes hid beneath a severely straight fringe of black hair. A hook nose. Long arms, big hands, but he didn’t appear particularly strong.

Albert Stemple, whose every muscle seemed to be massive, stood nearby and eyed the perp carefully, ready to step on the bug if need be. O’Neil took a radio call. He stepped away.

Keplar repeated, “Event. Event…Could describe a game, you know.” He spoke in an oddly high voice, which Dance found irritating. Probably not the tone, more the smirk with which the words were delivered. “Or could be a tragedy. Like they’d call an earthquake or a nuclear meltdown an ‘event.’ The press, I mean. They love words like that.”

O’Neil motioned Dance aside. “That was Oakland PD. The CI’s reporting that Keplar’s pretty senior in the Brothers of Liberty. The other guy — the wounded one…” He nodded toward the warehouses. “Gabe Paulson, he’s technical. At least has some schooling in engineering. If it’s a bomb, he’s probably the one set it up.”

“They think that’s what it is?”

“No intelligence about the means,” O’Neil explained. “On their website they’ve talked about doing anything and everything to make their point. Bio, chemical, snipers, even hooking up with some Islamic extremist group and doing a quote ‘joint venture.’”

Dance’s mouth tightened. “We supply the explosives, you supply the suicide bomber?”

“That pretty much describes it.”

Her eyes took in Keplar, sitting on the curb, and she noted that he was relaxed, even jovial. Dance, whose position with the CBI trumped the other law enforcers, approached him and regarded the lean man calmly. “We understand you’re planning an attack of some sort—”

“Event,” he reminded her.

“Event, then, in two and a half hours. Is that true?”

“’Deed it is.”

“Well, right now, the only crimes you’ll be charged with are traffic. At the worst, we could get you for conspiracy and attempt, several different counts. If that event occurs and people lose their lives—”

“The charges’ll be a lot more serious,” he said jovially. “Let me ask you — what’s your name?”

“Agent Dance. CBI.” She proffered her ID.

He smacked his lips. As irritating as his weaselly voice. “Agent Dance, of the CBI, let me ask you, don’t you think we have a few too many laws in this country? My goodness, Moses gave us ten. Things seemed to work pretty well back then and now we’ve got Washington and Sacramento telling us what to do, what not to do. Every little detail. Honestly! They don’t have faith in our good, smart selves.”

“Mr. Keplar—”

“Call me Wayne, please.” He looked her over appraisingly. Which cut of meat looks good today? “I’ll call you Kathryn.”

She noted that he’d memorized her name from the perusal of the ID. While Dance, as an attractive woman, was frequently undressed in the imaginations of the suspects she interviewed, Keplar’s gaze suggested he was pitying her, as if she were afflicted with a disease. In her case, she guessed, the disease was the tumor of government and racial tolerance.

Dance noted the impervious smile on his face, his air of…what? Yes, almost triumph. He didn’t appear at all concerned he’d been arrested.

Glancing at her watch: 1:37.

Dance stepped away to take a call from TJ Scanlon, updating her on the status of Gabe Paulson, the other perp. She was talking to him when O’Neil tapped her shoulder. She followed his gaze.

Three black SUVs, dusty and dinged but imposing, sped into the parking lot and squealed to a halt, red and blue lights flashing. A half-dozen men in suits climbed out, two others in tactical gear.

The largest of the men who were Brooks Brothers — clad — six two and two hundred pounds — brushed his thick graying hair back and strode forward.

“Michael, Kathryn.”

“Hi, Steve.”

Stephen Nichols was the head of the local field office of the FBI. He’d worked with Dance’s husband, Bill Swenson, a bureau agent until his death. She’d met Nichols once or twice. He was a competent agent but ambitious in a locale where ambition didn’t do you much good. He should have been in Houston or Atlanta, where he could free-style his way a bit further.

He said, “I never got the file on this one.”

Don’t you read the dailies?

Dance said, “We didn’t either. Everybody assumed the BOL would strike up near San Francisco, that bay, not ours.”

Nichols said, “Who’s he?”

Keplar stared back with amused hostility toward Nichols, who would represent that most pernicious of enemies — the federal government.

Dance explained his role in the group and what it was believed they’d done here.

“Any idea exactly what they have in mind?” another agent with Nichols asked.

“Nothing. So far.”

“There were two of them?” Nichols asked.

Dance added, “The other’s Gabe Paulson.” She nodded toward the warehouses some distance away. “He was wounded but I just talked to my associate. It’s a minor injury. He can be interrogated.”

Nichols hesitated, looking at the fog coming in fast. “You know, I have to take them, Kathryn.” He sounded genuinely regretful at this rank pulling. His glance wafted toward O’Neil, too, though Monterey was pretty far down on the rung in the hierarchy of law enforcement here represented and nobody — even the sheriff himself — expected that the County would snag the bad boys.

“Sure.” Dance glanced toward her watch. “But we haven’t got much time. How many interrogators do you have?”

The agent was hesitating. “Just me for now. We’re bringing in somebody from San Francisco. He’s good.”

“Bo?”

“Right.”

“He’s good. But—” She tapped her watch. “Let’s split them up, Steve. Give me one of them. At least for the time being.”

Nichols shrugged. “I guess.”

Dance said, “Keplar’s going to be the trickiest. He’s senior in the organization and he’s not the least shaken by the collar.” She nodded toward the perp, who was lecturing nearby officers relentlessly about the destruction of the Individual by Government — he was supplying the capitalization. “He’s going to be trickier to break. Paulson’s been wounded and that’ll make him more vulnerable.” She could see that Nichols was considering this. “I think, our different styles, background, yours and mine, it’d make sense for me to take Keplar, you take Paulson.”

Nichols squinted against some momentary glare as a roll of fog vanished. “Who’s Paulson exactly?”

O’Neil answered, “Seems to be the technician. He’d know about the device, if that’s what they’ve planted. Even if he doesn’t tell you directly, he could give something away that’d let us figure out what’s going on.” The Monterey detective wouldn’t know exactly why Dance wanted Keplar and not Gabe but he’d picked up on her preference and he was playing along.

This wasn’t completely lost on the FBI agent. Nichols would be considering a lot of things. Did Dance’s idea to split up the interrogation make sense? Did she and he indeed have different interrogation styles and background? Also, he’d know that O’Neil and Dance were close and they might be double-teaming him in some way, though he might not figure out to what end. He might have thought she was bluffing, hoping that he’d pick Wayne Keplar, because she herself wanted Gabe Paulson for some reason. Or he might have decided that all was good and it made sense for him to take the wounded perp.

Whatever schematics were drawn in his mind, he debated a long moment and then agreed.

Dance nodded. “I’ll call my associate, have Paulson brought over here.”

She gestured to the two CHP officers towering over Wayne Keplar. He was hoisted to his feet and led to Dance, O’Neil and Nichols. Albert Stemple — who weighed twice what the suspect did — took custody with a no-nonsense grip on the man’s scrawny arm.

Keplar couldn’t take his eyes off the FBI agents. “Do you know the five reasons the federal government is a travesty?”

Dance wanted him to shut up — she was afraid Nichols would change his mind and drag the perp off himself.

“First, economically. I—”

“Whatever,” Nichols muttered and wandered off to await his own prisoner.

Dance nodded and Stemple escorted Keplar to a CBI unmarked Dodge and inserted him into the backseat.

Michael O’Neil would stay to supervise the crime scene here, canvassing for witnesses and searching for evidence — possibly items thrown from the car that might give them more information about the site of the attack.

As she got into her personal vehicle, a gray Nissan Pathfinder, Dance called to Nichols and O’Neil, “And remember: We have two and a half hours. We’ve got to move fast.”

She pulled out her phone, briefed TJ Scanlon about Paulson and Nichols and turned on the flashing lights suctioned to her windshield.

1:52.

Dance left rubber on the concrete as she sped out of the parking lot.

Fast…

Albert Stemple was parked outside CBI, looking with some contempt at the press vans that were lolling near the front door. Dance parked behind him. She strode to the Dodge.

A reporter — a man with an aura of Jude Law, if not the exact looks — pushed to the barricade and thrust a microphone their way.

“Kathryn! Kathryn Dance! Dan Simmons, The True Story dot com.”

She knew him. A sensationalist reporter who oozed toward the tawdrier aspects of a story like slugs to Dance’s doomed vegetable garden.

Simmons’s cameraman, a squat, froggy man with crinkly and unwashed hair, aimed a fancy Sony video cam their way as if about to launch a rocket-propelled grenade.

“No comment on anything, Dan.” She and Stemple shoehorned Wayne Keplar out of the car.

The reporter ignored her. “Can you give us your name?” Aimed at the suspect.

Keplar was all too happy to talk. He shouted out, “The Brothers of Liberty,” and began a lecturette about how the fourth estate was in the pocket of corporate money and the government.

“Not all reporters, Wayne,” Simmons said. “Not us. We’re with you, brother! Keep talking.”

This impressed Keplar.

“Quiet,” Dance muttered, leading him toward the front door.

“And we’re about to strike a blow for freedom!”

“What are you going to do, Wayne?” Simmons shouted.

“We have no comment,” Dance called.

“Well, I do. I’ve only been arrested,” Wayne offered energetically, with a smile, ignoring Dance and mugging for the reporter, whose disheveled photographer was shooting away with his fancy digital video camera. “I’m not under a gag order. Freedom of speech! That’s what the founders of this country believed in. Even if the people in charge now don’t.”

“Let him talk, Agent!” the reporter called.

“I have no comment at this time.”

Simmons replied, “We don’t want your comment, Kathryn. We want Wayne’s.” He then added, “Were you hurt, Wayne? You’re limping.”

“They hurt me in the arrest. That’ll be part of the lawsuit.”

He hadn’t been limping earlier. Dance tried to keep the disgust off her face.

“We heard there were other suspects. One’s wounded and in FBI custody. The other’s at large.”

Police scanners. Dance grimaced. It was illegal to hack cell phones, but anybody could buy a scanner and learn all they wanted to about police operations.

“Wayne, what do you expect to achieve by what you’re doing?”

“Makin’ the people aware of the overbearing government. The disrespect for the people of this great nation and—”

Dance actually pushed him through the door into the CBI Monterey headquarters, an unimpressive building that resembled one of the insurance agencies or law offices in this business park east of the airport on the way to Salinas, off Highway 68.

Simmons called, “Kathryn! Agent Dance—”

The CBI’s front door was on a hydraulic closer but she would have slammed it if she could have.

Dance turned to him. “Wayne, I’ve read you your rights. You understand you have the right to an attorney. And that anything you say can and will be used against you in court.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you wish to waive your right to an attorney and to remain silent?”

“Yup.”

“You understand you can break off our interview at any time.”

“I do now. Thanks very much. Informative.”

“Will you tell us where you’re planning this attack? Do that and we’ll work out a deal.”

“Will you let our founder, Osmond Carter, go free? He’s been illegally arrested, in contravention of his basic human rights.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Then I think I’m not inclined to tell you what we’ve got in mind.” A grin. “But I’m happy to talk. Always enjoy a good chin-wag with an attractive woman.”

Dance nodded to Stemple, who guided Keplar through the maze of hallways to an interrogation room. She followed. She checked her weapon and took the file that a fellow agent had put together on the suspect. Three pages were in the manila sleeve. That’s all? she wondered, flipping open the file and reading the sparse history of Wayne Keplar and the pathetic organization he was sacrificing his life for.

She paused only once. To glance at her watch and learn that she had only two hours and one minute to stop the attack.

Michael O’Neil was pursuing the case at the crime scene, as he always did: meticulously, patiently.

If an idea occurred to him, if a clue presented itself, he followed the lead until it paid off or it turned to dust.

He finished jotting down largely useless observations and impressions of witnesses in front of where the trooper rammed the suspects’ car. (“Man, it was totally, like, loud.”) The detective felt a coalescing of moisture on his face; that damn Monterey fog — as much a local institution as John Steinbeck, Cannery Row and Langston Hughes. He wiped his face with broad palms. On the water, fishing from his boat, he didn’t think anything of the damp air. Now, it was irritating.

He approached the head of his Forensic Services Unit, a dark-complexioned man, who was of Latino and Scandinavian heritage, Abbott Calderman. The CBI didn’t have a crime scene operation and the FBI’s closest one was in the San Jose — San Francisco area. The MCSO provided most of the forensics for crimes in this area. Calderman’s team was clustered around the still-vaporing Taurus, practically dismantling it, to find clues that could tell them about the impending attack. Officers were also examining, then bagging and tagging, the pocket litter from the two suspects — the police term for wallets, money, receipts, twenty-dollar bills (serial numbers, thanks to ATMs, revealed more than you’d think), sunglasses, keys and the like. These items would be logged and would ultimately end up at the jail where the men would be booked — Salinas — but for now the team would examine the items for information about the “event” Wayne Keplar had so proudly referred to.

Calderman was speaking to one of his officers, who was swathed in bright blue crime scene overalls, booties and a surgeon’s shower cap.

“Michael,” the CS head said, joining the detective. “My folks’re going through the car.” A glance at the totaled vehicle, air bags deployed. “It’s real clean — no motel keys, letters or schematics.”

Rarely were perps discovered with maps in their possession with a red grease pencil X, the legend reading: “Attack here!”

“We’ll know more when we analyze the trace from the tires and the floor of the passenger compartment and the trunk. But they did find something you ought to know about. A thermos of coffee.”

“And it was still hot?”

“Right.” Calderman nodded that O’Neil caught the significance of the discovery. “And no receipts from Starbucks or a place that sells brewed coffee.”

“So they might’ve stayed the night here somewhere and brewed it this morning.”

“Possibly.” Oakland was a long drive. It could take three hours or more. Finding the thermos suggested, though hardly proved, that they’d come down a day or two early to prepare for the attack. This meant there’d probably be a motel nearby, with additional evidence. Though they’d been too smart to keep receipts or reservation records.

The Crime Scene head added, “But most important: We found three cups inside. Two in the cup holders in the front seat, one on the floor in the back, and the rear floor was wet with spilled coffee.”

“So, there’s a third perp?” O’Neil asked.

“Looks that way — though the trooper who nailed them didn’t see anybody else. Could’ve been hiding in the back.”

O’Neil considered this and called Oakland PD. He learned that the CI had only heard about Paulson and Keplar, but it was certainly possible he decided to ask someone else along. The snitch had severed all contact with the BOL, worried that by diming out the operation he’d be discovered and killed.

O’Neil texted Dance and let her know about the third perp, in case this would help in the interrogation. He informed the FBI’s Steve Nichols, too.

He then disconnected and looked over the hundred or so people standing at the yellow police tape gawking at the activity.

The third perp…Maybe he’d gotten out of the car earlier, after setting up the attack but before the CHP trooper found the suspects.

Or maybe he’d bailed out here, when the Taurus was momentarily out of sight behind the outlet store.

O’Neil summoned several other Monterey County officers and a few CHP troopers. They headed behind the long building searching the loading docks — and even in the Dumpsters — for any trace of the third suspect.

O’Neil hoped they’d be successful. Maybe the perp had bailed because he had particularly sensitive or incriminating information on him. Or he was a local contact who did use credit cards and ATM machines — whose paper trail could steer the police toward the target.

Or maybe he was the sort who couldn’t resist interrogation, perhaps the teenage child of one of the perps. Fanatics like those in the Brothers of Liberty had no compunction about enlisting — and endangering — their children.

But the search team found no hint that someone had gotten out of the car and fled. The rear of the mall faced a hill of sand, dotted with succulent plants. The area was crowned with a tall chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. It would have been possible, though challenging, to escape that way, but no footprints in the sand led to the fence. All the loading dock doors were locked and alarmed; he couldn’t have gotten into the stores that way.

O’Neil continued to the far side of the building. He walked there now and noted a Burger King about fifty or sixty feet away. He entered the restaurant, carefully scanning to see if anyone avoided eye contact or, more helpfully, took off quickly.

No one did. But that didn’t mean the third perp wasn’t here. This happened relatively often. Not because of the adage (which was wrong) about returning to or remaining at the scene of the crime out of a subconscious desire to get caught. No, perps were often arrogant enough to stay around and scope out the nature of the investigation, as well as get the identities of the investigators who were pursuing them — even, in some cases, taking digital pictures to let their friends and fellow gangbangers know who was searching for them.

In English and Spanish he interviewed the diners, asking if they’d seen anyone get out of the perps’ car behind the outlet store. Typical of witnesses, people had seen two cars, three cars, no cars, red Tauruses, blue Camrys, green Chryslers, gray Buicks. No one had seen any passengers exit any vehicles. Finally, though, he had some luck. One woman nodded in answer to his questions. She pulled gaudy eyeglasses out of her blond hair, where they rested like a tiara, and put them on, squinting as she looked over the scene thoughtfully. Pointing with her gigantic soda cup, she indicated a spot behind the stores where she’d noticed a man standing next to a car that could’ve been blue. She didn’t know if he’d gotten out or not. She explained that somebody in the car handed him a blue backpack and he’d left. Her description of the men — one in combat fatigues and one in black cargo pants and a black leather jacket — left no doubt that the men in the car were Keplar and Paulson.

“Did you see where he went?”

“Toward the parking lot, I guess. I, like, didn’t pay much attention.” Looking around. Then she stiffened. “Oh…”

“What?” O’Neil asked.

“That’s him!” she whispered, pointing to a sandy-haired man in jeans and work shirt, with a backpack over his shoulder. Even from this distance, O’Neil could see he was nervous, rocking from foot to foot, as he studied the crime scene. He was short, about five three or so, explaining why the trooper might easily miss him in the back of the Taurus.

O’Neil used his radio to call an MCSO deputy and have her get the woman’s particulars. She agreed to stay here until they collared the perp so she could make a formal ID. He then pulled his badge off his neck and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket, which he buttoned, to conceal the Glock.

He started out of the Burger King.

“Mister…Detective,” the woman called. “One thing…that backpack? You oughta know, when the guy handed it to him, they treated it real careful. I thought maybe it had something breakable in it. But now maybe I’m thinking it could be, you know, dangerous.”

“Thanks.”

It was then that the sandy-haired man glanced toward O’Neil.

And he understood.

He eased back into the crowd. Hiking the backpack higher on his shoulder, he turned and began to run, speeding between the buildings to the back of the mall. There he hesitated for only a moment, charged up the sand hill and scaled the six-foot chain-link O’Neil had surveyed earlier, shredding part of his jacket as he deftly vaulted the barbed wire. He sprawled onto the unkempt land on the other side of the fence, also mostly sand. It was a deserted former military base, hundreds of acres.

O’Neil and two deputies approached the fence. The detective scaled it fast, tearing his shirt and losing some skin on the back of his hand as he crested the barbed wire. He leapt to the sand on the other side. He rolled once, righted himself and drew his gun, anticipating an attack.

But the perp had disappeared.

One of the deputies behind him got most of the way up the fence, but lost his grip and fell. He dropped straight down, off balance, and O’Neil heard the pop of his ankle as it broke.

“Oh,” the young man muttered as he looked down at the odd angle. He turned as pale as the fog and passed out.

The other deputy called for a medic then started up the fence.

“No!” O’Neil shouted. “Stay there.”

“But—”

“I’ll handle the pursuit. Call a chopper.” And he turned, sprinting through the sand and succulents and scrub oak and pine, dodging around dunes and stands of dry trees — behind any one of which an armed suspect could be waiting.

He hardly wanted to handle the pursuit alone but he had no choice. Just after he’d landed, he’d seen a sign lying faceup on the sand.

It featured a picture of an explosion coming up from the ground. Red years ago, the paint was now pink.

This area had been part of the military base’s artillery range, and reportedly thousands of tons of shells and grenades were buried here, waiting to be cleared as soon as the Pentagon’s budget allowed.

But O’Neil thought of the two hundred people who’d die in less than two hours and began to sprint along the trail that the suspect had been kind enough to leave in the sand.

The unreasonable idea occurred to him that if he took Kathryn Dance’s advice — to move fast—he might be past the cannon shell when it detonated.

He didn’t, however, think an explosion like that was something you could outrun.

Kinesic analysis works because of one simple concept, which Dance thought of as the Ten Commandments Principle.

Although she herself wasn’t religious, she liked the metaphor. It boiled down to simply: Thou Shalt Not…

What came after that prohibition didn’t matter. The gist was that people knew the difference between right and wrong and they felt uneasy doing something they shouldn’t.

Some of this stemmed from the fear of getting caught, but still we’re largely hardwired to do the right thing.

When people are deceptive (either actively misstating or failing to give the whole story) they experience stress and this stress reveals itself. Charles Darwin said, “Repressed emotion almost always comes to the surface in some form of body motion.”

The problem for interrogators is that stress doesn’t necessarily show up as nail biting, sweating and eye avoidance. It could take the form of a pleasant grin, a cheerful nod, a sympathetic wag of the head.

You don’t say…

Well, that’s terrible…

What a body language expert must do is compare subjects’ behavior in nonstressful situations with their behavior when they might be lying. Differences between the two suggest — though they don’t prove — deception. If there is some variation, a kinesic analyst then continues to probe the topic that’s causing the stress until the subject confesses, or it’s otherwise explained.

In interrogating Wayne Keplar, Dance would take her normal approach: asking a number of innocuous questions that she knew the answers to and that the suspect would have no reason to lie about. She’d also just shoot the breeze with him, no agenda other than to note how he behaved when feeling no stress. This would establish his kinesic “baseline”—a catalog of his body language, tone of voice and choice of expressions when he was at ease and truthful.

Only then would she turn to questions about the impending attack and look for variations from the baseline when he answered.

But establishing the baseline usually requires many hours, if not days, of casual discussion.

Time that Kathryn Dance didn’t have.

It was now 2:08.

Still, there was no option other than to do the best she could. She’d learned that there was another suspect, escaping through the old military ordnance storage and practice ground, with Michael O’Neil in pursuit (she knew the dangers of the base and didn’t want to think of the risks to him). And the Monterey Crime Scene team was still going over the Taurus and the items that Paulson and Keplar had on them when arrested. But these aspects of the investigation had produced no leads.

Dance now read the sparse file once more quickly. Wayne Keplar was forty-four, high school educated only, but he’d done well at school and was now one of the “philosophers” at the Brothers of Liberty, writing many of the essays and diatribes on the group’s blogs and website. He was single, never married. He’d been born in the Haight, lived in San Diego and Bakersfield. Now in Oakland. He didn’t have a passport and had never been out of the country. His father was dead — killed in a Waco/Ruby Ridge — type standoff with federal officers. His mother and sister, a few years older than he, were also involved in the BOL, which despite the name, boasted members of both sexes. Neither of these family members had a criminal record.

Keplar, on the other hand, did — but a minor one, and nothing violent. His only federal offense had been graffiti-ing an armed forces recruitment center.

He also had an older brother, who lived on the East Coast, but the man apparently hadn’t had any contact with Keplar for years and had nothing to do with the BOL.

A deep data mine search had revealed nothing about Keplar’s and Gabe Paulson’s journey here. This was typical of militia types, worried about Big Brother. They’d pay cash for as much as they could.

Normally she’d want far more details than this, but there was no more time.

Fast…

Dance left the folder at the desk out front and entered the interrogation room. Keplar glanced up with a smile.

“Uncuff him,” she said to Albert Stemple, who didn’t hesitate even though he clearly wasn’t crazy about the idea.

Dance would be alone in the room with an unshackled suspect, but she couldn’t afford to have the man’s arms limited by chains. Body language analysis is hard enough even with all the limbs unfettered.

Keplar slumped lazily in the gray padded office chair, as if settling in to watch a football game he had some, but not a lot of, interest in.

Dance nodded to Stemple, who left and closed the thick door behind him. Her eyes went to the large analog clock at the far end of the room.

2:16.

Keplar followed her gaze then looked back. “You’re goin’ to try to find out where the…event’s takin’ place. Ask away. But I’ll tell you right now, it’s going to be a waste of time.”

Dance moved her chair so that she sat across from him, with no furniture between them. Any barrier between interviewer and subject, even a small table, gives the perp a sense of protection and makes kinesic analysis that much harder. Dance was about three feet from him, in his personal proxemic zone — not so close as to make him stonewall, but near enough to keep him unsettled.

Except that he wasn’t unsettled. At all. Wayne Keplar was as calm as could be.

He looked at her steadily, a gaze that was not haughty, not challenging, not sexy. It was almost as if he were sizing up a dog to buy for his child.

“Wayne, you don’t have a driver’s license.”

“Another way for the government to keep tabs on you.”

“Where do you live?”

“Oakland. Near the water. Been there for six years. Town has a bad rap but it’s okay.”

“Where were you before that?”

“San Diego.”

She asked more about his personal life and travels, pretending not to know the answers. She’d left the file outside.

His responses were truthful. And as he spoke she noted his shoulders were forward, his right hand tended to come to rest on his thigh, he looked her straight in the eye when he spoke, his lips often curled into a half smile. He had a habit of poking his tongue into the interior of his cheek from time to time. It could have been a habit or could be from withdrawal — missing chewing tobacco, which Dance knew could be as addictive as smoking.

“Why’d you leave San Diego, Wayne? Weather’s nicer than Oakland.”

“Not really. I don’t agree with that. But I just didn’t like it. You know how you get a vibration and it’s just not right.”

“That’s true,” she said.

He beamed in an eerie way. “Do you? You know that? You’re a firecracker, Kathryn. Yes, you are.”

A chill coursed down her spine as the near-set eyes tapped across her face.

She ignored it as best she could and asked, “How senior are you in the Brothers of Liberty?”

“I’m pretty near the top. You know anything about it?”

“No.”

“I’d love to tell you. You’re smart, Ms. Firecracker. You’d probably think there’re some pretty all right ideas we’ve got.”

“I’m not sure I would.”

A one-shoulder shrug — another of his baseline gestures. “But you never know.”

Then came more questions about his life in Oakland, his prior convictions, his childhood. Dance knew the answers to some but the others were such that he’d have no reason to lie and she continued to rack up elements of baseline body language and verbal quality (the tone and speed of speech).

She snuck a glance at the clock.

“Time’s got you rattled, does it?”

“You’re planning to kill a lot of people. Yes, that bothers me. But not you, I see.”

“Ha, now you’re sounding just like a therapist. I was in counseling once. It didn’t take.”

“Let’s talk about what you have planned, the two hundred people you’re going to kill.”

“Two hundred and change.”

So, more victims. His behavior fit the baseline. This was true; he wasn’t just boasting.

“How many more?”

“Two hundred twenty, I’d guess.”

An idea occurred to Dance and she said, “I’ve told you we’re not releasing Osmond Carter. That will never be on the table.”

“Your loss…well, not yours. Two hundred and some odd people’s loss.”

“And killing them is only going to make your organization a pariah, a—”

“I know what ‘pariah’ means. Go on.”

“Don’t you think it would work to your advantage, from a publicity point of view, if you call off the attack, or tell me the location now?”

He hesitated. “Maybe. That could be, yeah.” Then his eyes brightened. “Now, I’m not inclined to call anything off. That’d look bad. Or tell you direct where this thing’s going to happen. But you being Ms. Firecracker and all, how ’bout I give you a chance to figure it out. We’ll play a game.”

“Game?”

“Twenty Questions. I’ll answer honestly, I swear I will.”

Sometimes that last sentence was a deception flag. Now, she didn’t think so.

“And if you find out where those two hundred and twenty souls’re going to meet Jesus…then good for you. I can honestly say I didn’t tell you. But you only get twenty questions. You don’t figure it out, get the morgue ready. You want to play, Kathryn? If not, I’ll just decide I want my lawyer and hope I’m next to a TV in”—he looked at the clock—“one hour and forty-one minutes.”

“All right, let’s play,” Dance said, and she subtly wiped the sweat that had dotted her palms. How on earth to frame twenty questions to narrow down where the attack would take place? She’d never been in an interrogation like this.

He sat forward. “This’ll be fun!”

“Is the attack going to be an explosive device?”

“Question one — I’ll keep count. No.”

“What will it be?”

“That’s question two but, sorry, you know Twenty Questions: has to be yes or no answers. But I’ll give you a do-over.”

“Will it be a chemical/bio weapon?”

“Sorta cheating there, a twofer. But I’ll say yes.”

“Is it going to be in a place open to the public?”

“Number three. Yes, sorta public. Let’s say, there’ll be public access.”

He was telling the truth. All his behavior and the pitch and tempo of voice bore out his honesty. But what did he mean by public access but not quite public?

“Is it an entertainment venue?”

“Question four. Well, not really, but there will be entertainment there.”

“Christmas related?”

He scoffed. “That’s five. Are you asking questions wisely, Ms. Firecracker? You’ve used a quarter of them already. You could have combined Christmas and entertainment. Anyway, yes, Christmas is involved.”

Dance thought this curious. The Brothers of Liberty apparently had a religious side, even if they weren’t born-again fanatics. She would have thought the target might be Islamic or Jewish.

“Have the victims done anything to your organization personally?”

Thinking police or law enforcement or government.

“Six. No.”

“You’re targeting them on ideological grounds?”

“Seven. Yes.”

She asked, “Will it be in Monterey County?”

“Number eight. Yes.”

“In the city of…” No, if she followed those lines of questioning, she’d use up all the questions just asking about the many towns and unincorporated areas in Monterey County. “Will it be near the water?”

“Sloppy question. Expect better from you, Ms. Firecracker. Do-over. Near the what?”

Stupid of her, Dance realized, her heart pounding. There were a number of bodies of water and rivers in the area. And don’t ask about the ocean. Technically, Monterey wasn’t on the Pacific. “Will it be within a half mile of Monterey Bay?”

“Good!” he said, enjoying himself. “Yes. That was nine. Almost halfway there.”

And she could see he was telling the truth completely. Every answer was delivered according to his kinesic baseline.

“Do you and Gabe Paulson have a partner helping you in the event?”

One eyebrow rose. “Yes. Number ten. You’re halfway to saving all them poor folks, Kathryn.”

“Is the third person a member of the Brothers of Liberty?”

“Yes. Eleven.”

She was thinking hard, unsure how to finesse the partner’s existence into helpful information. She changed tack. “Do the victims need tickets to get into the venue?”

“Twelve. I want to play fair. I honestly don’t know. But they did have to sign up and pay. That’s more than I should give you, but I’m enjoying this.” And indeed it seemed that Keplar was.

She was beginning to form some ideas.

“Is the venue a tourist attraction?”

“Thirteen. Yes, I’d say so. At least near tourist attractions.”

Now she felt safe using one of her geographical questions. “Is it in the city of Monterey?”

“No. Fourteen.”

“Carmel?”

“No. Fifteen.”

Dance kept her own face neutral. What else should she be asking? If she could narrow it down a bit more, and if Michael O’Neil and his Crime Scene team came up with other details, they might cobble together a clear picture of where the attack would take place then evacuate every building in the area.

“How you doing there, Kathryn? Feeling the excitement of a good game? I sure am.” He looked at the clock. Dance did, too. Hell, time had sped by during this exchange. It was now 2:42.

She didn’t respond to his question, but tried a different tack. “Do your close friends know what you’re doing?”

He frowned. “You want to use question sixteen for that? Well, your choice. Yes.”

“Do they approve?”

“Yes, all of them. Seventeen. Getting all you need here, Kathryn? Seems you’re getting off track.”

But she wasn’t. Dance had another strategy. She was comfortable with the information she had — tourist area, near the water, a paid-for event, Christmas related, a few other facts — and with what O’Neil found, she hoped they could narrow down areas to evacuate. Now she was hoping to convince him to confess by playing up the idea raised earlier. That by averting the attack he’d still score some good publicity but wouldn’t have to go to jail forever or die by lethal injection. Even if she lost the Twenty Questions game, which seemed likely, she was getting him to think about the people he was close to, friends and family he could still spend time with — if he stopped the attack.

“And family — do your siblings approve?”

“Question eighteen. Don’t have any. I’m an only child. You only got two questions left, Kathryn. Spend ’em wisely.”

Dance hardly heard the last sentences. She was stunned.

Oh, no…

His behavior when he’d made the comment about not having siblings — a bald lie — was identical to that of the baseline.

During the entire game he’d been lying.

Their eyes met. “Tripped up there, didn’t I?” He laughed hard. “We’re off the grid so much, didn’t think you knew about my family. Shoulda been more careful.”

“Everything you just told me was a lie.”

“Thin air. Whole cloth. Pick your cliché, Ms. Firecracker. Had to run the clock. There’s nothing on God’s green earth going to save those people.”

She understood now what a waste of time this had been. Wayne Keplar was probably incapable of being kinesically analyzed. The Ten Commandments Principle didn’t apply in his case. Keplar felt no more stress lying than he did telling the truth. Like serial killers and schizophrenics, political extremists often feel they are doing what’s right, even if those acts are criminal or reprehensible to others. They’re convinced of their own moral rectitude.

“Look at it from my perspective. Sure, we would’ve gotten some press if I’d confessed. But you know reporters — they’d get tired of the story after a couple days. Two hundred dead folk? Hell, we’ll be on CNN for weeks. You can’t buy publicity like that.”

Dance pushed back from the table and, without a word, stepped outside.

Michael O’Neil sprinted past ghosts.

The Monterey area is a place where apparitions from the past are ever present.

The Ohlone Native Americans, the Spanish, the railroad barons, the commercial fishermen…all gone.

And the soldiers, too, who’d inhabited Fort Ord and the other military facilities that once dotted the Monterey Peninsula and defined the economy and the culture.

Gasping and sweating despite the chill and mist, O’Neil jogged past the remnants of barracks and classrooms and training facilities, some intact, some sagging, some collapsed.

Past vehicle pool parking lots, supply huts, rifle ranges, parade grounds.

Past signs that featured faded skulls and crossed bones and pink explosions.

UXO…

The suspect wove through the area desperately and the chase was exhausting. The land had been bulldozed flat in the 1930s and ’40s for the construction of the base but the dunes had reclaimed much of the landscape, rippled mounds of blond sand, some of them four stories high.

The perp made his way through these valleys in a panicked run, falling often, as did O’Neil because of the dicey traction — and the fast turns and stop-and-go sprinting when what looked like a potential explosives stash loomed.

O’Neil debated about parking a slug in the man’s leg, though that’s technically a no-no. Besides, O’Neil couldn’t afford to miss and kill him.

The suspect chugged along, gasping, red-faced, the deadly backpack over his shoulder bouncing.

Finally, O’Neil heard the thud thud thud of rotors moving in.

He reflected that a chopper was the only smart way to pursue somebody through an area like this, even if it wasn’t technically a minefield. The birds wouldn’t trip the explosives, as long as they hovered.

And what were the odds that he himself would detonate some ordnance, mangling his legs?

What about the kids then?

What about his possible life with Kathryn Dance?

He decided that those questions were pointless. This was military ordnance. He’d end up not an amputee but a mass of red jelly.

The chopper moved closer. God, they were loud. He’d forgotten that.

The suspect stopped, glanced back and then turned right, disappearing fast behind a dune.

Was it a trap? O’Neil started forward slowly. But he couldn’t see clearly. The chopper was raising a turbulent cloud of dust and sand. O’Neil waved it back. He pointed his weapon ahead of him and began to approach the valley down which the perp had disappeared.

The helicopter hovered closer yet. The pilot apparently hadn’t seen O’Neil’s hand gestures. The sandstorm grew fiercer. Some completely indiscernible words rattled from a loudspeaker.

“Back, back!” O’Neil called, uselessly.

Then, in front of him, he noticed what seemed to be a person’s form, indistinct in the miasma of dust and sand. The figure was moving in.

Blinking, trying to clear his eyes, he aimed his pistol. “Freeze!”

Putting some pressure on the trigger. The gun was double-action now and it would take a bit of poundage to fire the first round.

Shoot, he told himself.

But there was too much dust to be sure this was in fact the perp. What if it was a hostage or a lost hiker?

He crouched and staggered forward.

Damn chopper! Grit clotted his mouth.

Which was when a second silhouette, smaller, detached from the first and seemed to fly through the gauzy air toward him.

What was—?

The blue backpack struck him in the face. He fell backward, tumbling to the ground, the bag resting beside his legs. Choking on the sand, Michael O’Neil thought how ironic it was that he’d survived a UXO field only to be blown to pieces by a bomb the perp had brought with him.

The Bankers’ Association holiday party was under way. It had started, as they always did, a little early. Who wanted to deny loans or take care of the massive paperwork of approved ones when the joy of the season beckoned?

Carol and Hal were greeting the CCCBA members at the door, showing them where to hang coats, giving them gift bags and making sure the bar and snacks were in good supply.

The place did look magical. She’d opted to close the curtains — on a nice summer day the water view might be fine but the fog had descended and the scenery was gray and gloomy. Inside, though, with the holiday lights and dimmed overheads, the banquet room took on a warm, comfy tone.

Hal was walking around in his conservative suit, white shirt and oversized Santa hat. People sipped wine and punch, snapped digital pictures and clustered, talking about politics and sports and shopping and impending vacations.

Also, a lot of comments about interest rates, the Fed, and the euro.

With bankers you couldn’t get away from shop talk. Ever.

“We heard there’s a surprise, Carol,” one of the members called.

“What?” came another voice.

“Be patient,” she said, laughing. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”

When the party seemed to be spinning along on its own, she walked to the stage and tested the PA system once again. Yes, it was working fine.

Thank goodness.

The “surprise” depended on it. She’d arranged for the chorus from one of her grandsons’ high schools to go up onstage and present a holiday concert, traditional and modern Christmas and Hanukkah songs. She glanced at her watch. The kids would arrive at about 3:45. She’d heard the youngsters before and they were very good.

Carol laughed to herself, recalling the entertainment at last year’s party. Herb Ross, a VP at First People’s Trust, who’d injested close to a quart of the “special” punch, had climbed on the table to sing — and even worse (or better, for later water cooler stories) to act out — the entire “Twelve Days of Christmas” himself, the leaping lords being the high point.

Kathryn Dance spent a precious ten minutes texting and talking to a number of people in the field and here at headquarters.

It seemed that outside the surreality of the interrogation room, the investigation hadn’t moved well at all. Monterey’s Forensic Services Unit was still analyzing trace connected with the Taurus and the suspects’ pocket litter and Abbott Calderman said they might not have any answers for another ten or fifteen minutes.

Lord, she thought.

Michael O’Neil, when last heard from, had been pursuing the third conspirator in the abandoned army base. A police chopper had lost him in a cloud of dust and sand. She’d had a brief conversation with FBI agent Steve Nichols in a nearby mobile command post, who’d said, “This Paulson isn’t saying anything. Not a word. Just stares at me. I’d like to waterboard him.”

“We don’t do that,” Dance had reminded.

“I’m just daydreaming,” Nichols had muttered and hung up.

Now, returning to the interrogation room with Wayne Keplar, Dance looked at the clock on the wall.

3:10.

“Hey,” said Wayne Keplar, eyeing it briefly, then turning his gaze to Dance. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

Dance sat across the table from him. It was clear she wasn’t going to power a confession out of him, so she didn’t bother with the tradecraft of kinesic interviewing. She said, “I’m sure it’s no surprise that, before, I tried to analyze your body language and was hoping to come up with a way to pressure you into telling me what you and Gabe and your other associate had planned.”

“Didn’t know that about the body language. But makes sense.”

“Now I want to do something else, and I’m going to tell you exactly what that is. No tricks.”

“Shoot. I’m game.”

Dance had decided that traditional analysis and interrogation wouldn’t work with someone like Wayne Keplar. His lack of affect, his fanatic’s belief in the righteousness of his cause made kinesics useless. Content-based analysis wouldn’t do much good either; this is body language’s poor cousin, seeking to learn whether a suspect is telling the truth by considering if what he says makes sense. But Keplar was too much in control to let slip anything that she might parse for clues about deception and truth.

So she was doing something radical.

Dance now said, “I want to prove to you that your beliefs — what’s motivating you and your group to perform this attack — they’re wrong.”

He lifted an eyebrow. Intrigued.

This was a ludicrous idea for an interrogator. One should never argue substance with a suspect. If a man is accused of killing his wife, your job is to determine the facts and, if it appears that he did indeed commit murder, get a confession or at least gather enough information to help investigators secure his conviction.

There’s no point in discussing the right or wrong of what he did, much less the broader philosophical questions of taking lives in general or violence against women, say.

But that was exactly what she was going to do now.

Poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue once more, thoughtful, Keplar said, “Do you even know what our beliefs are?”

“I read the Brothers of Liberty website. I—”

“You like the graphics? Cost a pretty penny.”

A glance at the wall. 3:14.

Dance continued. “You advocate smaller government, virtually no taxes, decentralized banking, no large corporations, reduced military, religion in public schools. And that you have the right to violent civil disobedience. Along with some racial and ethnic theories that went out of fashion in the 1860s.”

“Well, ’bout that last one — truth is, we just throw that in to get checks from rednecks and border control nuts. Lot of us don’t really feel that way. But, Ms. Firecracker, you done your homework, sounds like. We’ve got more positions than you can shake a stick at but those’ll do for a start…So, argue away. This’s gonna be as much fun as Twenty Questions. But just remember, maybe I’ll talk you into my way of thinking, hanging up that tin star of yours and coming over to the good guys. What do you think about that?”

“I’ll stay open-minded, if you will.”

“Deal.”

She thought back to what she’d read on the group’s website. “You talk about the righteousness of the individual. Agree up to a point, but we can’t survive as individuals alone. We need government. And the more people we have, with more economic and social activity, the more we need a strong central government to make sure we’re safe to go about our lives.”

“That’s sad, Kathryn.”

“Sad?”

“Sure. I have more faith in humankind than you do, sounds like. We’re pretty capable of taking care of ourselves. Let me ask you: You go to the doctor from time to time, right?”

“Yes.”

“But not very often, right? Pretty rare, hmm? More often with the kids, I’ll bet. Sure, you have kids. I can tell.”

She let this go with no reaction.

3:17.

“But what does the doctor do? Short of broken bone to set, the doctor tells you pretty much to do what your instinct told you. Take some aspirin, go to bed, drink plenty of fluids, eat fiber, go to sleep. Let the body take care of itself. And ninety percent of the time, those ideas work.” His eyes lit up. “That’s what government should do: Leave us alone ninety percent of the time.”

“And what about the other ten percent?” Dance asked.

“I’ll give you that we need, let’s see, highways, airports, national defense…Ah, but what’s that last word? ‘Defense.’ You know, they used to call it the ‘War Department.’ Well, then some public relations fellas got involved and ‘War’ wouldn’t do anymore, so they changed it. But that’s a lie. See, it’s not just defense. We go poking our noses into places that we have no business being.”

“The government regulates corporations that would exploit people.”

He scoffed. “The government helps ’em do it. How many congressmen go to Washington poor and come back rich? Most of them.”

“But you’re okay with some taxes?”

He shrugged. “To pay for roads, air traffic control and defense.”

3:20.

“The SEC for regulating stocks?”

“We don’t need stocks. Ask your average Joe what the stock market is and they’ll tell ya it’s a way to make money or put something away for your retirement fund. They don’t realize that that’s not what it’s for. The stock market’s there to let people buy a company, like you’d go to a used car lot to buy a car. And why do you want to buy a company? Beats me. Maybe a few people’d buy stock because they like what the company does or they want to support a certain kind of business. That’s not what people want them for. Do away with stocks altogether. Learn to live off the land.”

“You’re wrong, Wayne. Look at all the innovations corporations have created: the lifesaving drugs, the medical supplies, the computers…that’s what companies have done.”

“Sure, and iPhones and BlackBerrys and laptops have replaced parents, and kids learn their family values at porn sites.”

“What about government providing education?”

“Ha! That’s another racket. Professors making a few hundred thousand dollars a year for working eight months, and not working very hard at that. Teachers who can hardly put a sentence together themselves. Tell me, Kathryn, are you happy handing over your youngsters to somebody you see at one or two PTA meetings a year? Who knows what the hell they’re poisoning their minds with.”

She said nothing, but hoped her face wasn’t revealing that from time to time she did indeed have those thoughts.

Keplar continued, “No, I got two words for you there. ‘Home schooling.’”

“You don’t like the police, you claim. But we’re here to make sure you and your family’re safe. We’ll even make sure the Brothers of Liberty’re free to go about their business and won’t be discriminated against and won’t be the victim of hate crimes.”

“Police state…Think on this, Ms. Firecracker. I don’t know what you do exactly here in this fancy building, but tell me true. You put your life on the line every day and for what? Oh, maybe you stop some crazy serial killer from time to time or save somebody in a kidnapping. But mostly cops just put on their fancy cop outfits and go bust some poor kids with drugs but never get to the why of it. What’s the reason they were scoring pot or coke in the first place? Because the government and the institutions of this country failed them.”

3:26.

“So you don’t like the federal government. But it’s all relative, isn’t it? Go back to the eighteenth century. We weren’t just a mass of individuals. There was state government and they were powerful. People had to pay taxes, they were subject to laws, they couldn’t take their neighbors’ property, they couldn’t commit incest, they couldn’t steal. Everybody accepted that. The federal government today is just a bigger version of the state governments in the 1700s.”

“Ah, good, Kathryn. I’ll give you that.” He nodded agreeably. “But we think state and even local laws are too much.”

“So you’re in favor of no laws?”

“Let’s just say a lot, lot less.”

Dance leaned forward, with her hands together. “Then let’s talk about your one belief that’s the most critical now: violence to achieve your ends. I’ll grant you that you have the right to hold whatever beliefs you want — and not get arrested for it. Which, by the way, isn’t true in a lot of countries.”

“We’re the best,” Keplar agreed. “But that’s still not good enough for us.”

“But violence is hypocritical.”

He frowned at this. “How so?”

“Because you take away the most important right of an individual — his life — when you kill him in the name of your views. How can you be an advocate of individuals and yet be willing to destroy them at the same time?”

His head bobbed up and down. A tongue poke again. “That’s good, Kathryn. Yes.”

She lifted her eyebrows.

Keplar added, “And there’s something to it…Except you’re missing one thing. Those people we’re targeting? They’re not individuals. They’re part of the system, just like you.”

“So you’re saying it’s okay to kill them because they’re, what? Not even human?”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Ms. Firecracker.” His eyes strayed to the wall. 3:34.

The helicopter set down in a parking lot of the outlet mall in Seaside and Michael O’Neil and a handcuffed suspect — no ID on him — climbed out.

O’Neil was bleeding from a minor cut on the head incurred when he scrabbled into a cluster of scrub oaks escaping the satchel bomb.

Which turned out to be merely a distraction.

No IEDs, no anthrax.

The satchel was filled with sand.

The perp had apparently disposed of whatever noxious substance it contained on one of his crosscut turns and weaves, and the evidence or bomb or other clue was lost in the sand.

The chopper’s downdraft hadn’t helped either.

What was most disappointing, though, was that the man had clammed up completely.

O’Neil was wondering if he was actually mute. He hadn’t said a word during the chase or after the detective had tackled and cuffed him and dragged him to the helicopter. Nothing O’Neil could say — promises or threats — could get the man to talk.

The detective handed him over to fellow Monterey County Sheriff’s Office deputies. A fast search revealed no ID. They took his prints, which came back negative from the field scanner, and the man was processed under a John Doe as “UNSUB A.”

The blond woman with the big soda cup — now mostly empty — who’d spotted him in the crowd now identified him formally and she left.

The Crime Scene boss strode up to O’Neil. “Don’t have much but I’ll say that the Taurus had recently spent some time on or near the beach along a stretch five miles south of Moss Landing.” Calderman explained that because of the unique nature of cooling water from the power plant at Moss Landing, and the prevailing currents and fertilizer from some of the local farms, he could pinpoint that part of the county.

If five miles could be called pinpointing.

“Anything else?”

“Nope. That’s it. Might get more in the lab.” Calderman nodded to his watch. “But there’s no time left.”

O’Neil called Kathryn, whose cell phone went right to voice mail. He texted her the information. He then looked over at the smashed Taurus, the emergency vehicles, the yellow tape stark in the gray foggy afternoon. He was thinking: It wasn’t unheard of for crime scenes to raise more questions than answers.

But why the hell did it have to be this one, when so little time remained to save the two hundred victims?

Hands steady as a rock, Harriet Keplar was driving the car she’d stolen from the parking lot at the outlet mall.

But even as her grip was firm, her heart was in turmoil. Her beloved brother, Wayne, and her sometime lover, Gabe Paulson, were in custody. After the bomb detonated shortly, she’d never see them again, except at trial — given Wayne’s courage, she suspected he’d plead not guilty simply so he could get up on the stand and give the judge, jury and press an earful, rather than work a deal with the prosecutor.

She pulled her glasses out of her hair and regarded her watch. Not long now. It was ten minutes to the Dunes Inn, which had been their staging area. And would have been where they’d wait out the next few days, watching the news. But now, sadly, Plan B was in effect. She’d go back to collect all the documents, maps, extra equipment and remaining explosives and get the hell back to Oakland. She bet there was a goddamn snitch within the Brothers of Liberty up there — how else would the police have known as much as they did? — and Harriet was going to find him.

It was a good thing they’d decided to split up behind the outlet mall. As the Taurus had temporarily evaded the Highway Patrol trooper and skidded to a stop, Harriet in the backseat, Wayne decided they had to make sure somebody got back to the motel and ditched the evidence — which implicated some very senior people at the BOL.

She jumped out with the backpack containing extra detonators and wires and tools and phony IDs that let them get into the banquet hall where the CCCBA was having their party. Harriet had been going to hijack a car and head back to the Dunes Inn, but the asshole of a trooper had rammed Gabe and Wayne. And police had descended.

She’d slipped into a Burger King, to let the dust settle. She’d ditched the contents of the satchel, but, to her dismay, the police were spreading out and talking to everybody at the mall. Harriet decided she had to find a fall guy to take attention away from her. She’d spotted a solo shopper, a man about her height with light hair — in case the trooper had seen her in the backseat. She stuck her Glock in his ribs, pulling him behind the BK, then grabbed his wallet. She found a picture of three spectacularly plain children and made a fake call on her cell phone to an imaginary assistant, telling him to get to the poor guy’s house and round up the kidlings.

If he didn’t do exactly as she said, they’d be shot, oldest to youngest. His wife would be the last to go.

She got his car keys and told him to stand in the crowd. If any cops came to talk to him he was to run and if he was caught he should throw the pack at them and keep running. If he got stopped he should say nothing. She, of course, was going to dime him out — and when the police went after him she would have a chance to take his car and leave. It would have worked fine, except that goddamn detective — O’Neil was his name — had her stay put so she could formally ID the sandy-haired guy. Oh, how she wanted to get the hell out of there. But she couldn’t arouse suspicion, so Harriet had cooled her heels, sucking down Diet Coke, and tried to wrestle with the anger and sorrow about her brother and Gabe.

Then O’Neil and the poor bastard had returned. She’d IDed him with a fierce glance of warning and given them some fake information on how to reach her.

And now she was in his car, heading back to the Dunes Inn.

Oh, Wayne, I’ll miss you! Gabe, too.

The motel loomed. She sped into the parking lot and braked to a stop.

She was then aware of an odd vibration under her hands. The steering column. What was it?

An earthquake?

A problem with the car?

She shut the engine off but the vibration grew louder.

Leaves began to move and the dust swirled like a tornado in the parking lot.

And Harriet understood. “Oh, shit.”

She pulled her Glock from her bag and sprinted toward the motel door, firing blindly at the helicopter as it landed in the parking lot. Several officers and, damn it, that detective, O’Neil, charged toward her. “Drop the weapon, drop the weapon!”

She hesitated and laid the gun and her keychain on the ground. Then she dropped facedown beside them.

Harriet was cuffed and pulled to her feet.

O’Neil was approaching, his weapon drawn and looking for accomplices. A cluster of cops dressed like soldiers was slowly moving toward the motel room.

“Anyone in there?” he asked.

“No.”

“It was just the three of you?”

“Yes.”

The detective called, “Treat it dynamic in any case.”

“How’d you know?” she snapped.

He looked her over neutrally. “The cargo pants.”

“What?”

“You described the man in the car and said one was wearing cargo pants. You couldn’t see the pants of somebody inside a car from sixty feet away. The angle was wrong.”

Hell, Harriet thought. Never even occurred to her.

O’Neil added that the man they’d believed was one of the conspirators was acting too nervous. “It occurred to me that he might’ve been set up. He told me what you’d done. We tracked his car here with his GPS.” O’Neil was going through her purse. “You’re his sister, Wayne’s.”

“I’m not saying anything else.” Harriet was distracted, her eyes taking in the motel room.

O’Neil caught it and frowned. He glanced down at her keychain, which held both a fob for her car and the second one.

She caught his eye and smiled.

“IED in the room!” he called. “Everybody back! Now.”

It wasn’t an explosive device, just a gas bomb Gabe had rigged in the event something like this happened. It had been burning for three minutes or so — she’d pushed the remote control the second she’d seen the chopper — but the smoke and flames weren’t yet visible.

Then a bubble of fire burst through two of the windows.

Armed with extinguishers, the tactical team hurried inside to salvage what they could, then retreated as the flames swelled. One officer called, “Michael! We spotted a box of plastic explosive detonators, some timers.”

Another officer ran up to O’Neil and showed him what was left of a dozen scorched documents. They were the floor plan for the site of the attack at the CCCBA party. He studied it. “A room with a stage. Could be anywhere. A corporation, school, hotel, restaurant.” He sighed.

Harriet panicked, then relaxed, as she snuck a glimpse and noted that the name of the motel was on a part of the sheet that had burned to ash.

“Where is this?” O’Neil asked her bluntly.

Harriet studied it for a moment and shook her head. “I’ve never seen that before. You planted it to incriminate me. The government does that all the time.”

At the Bankers’ party the high school students arrived, looking scrubbed and festive, all in uniforms, which Carol approved of. Tan slacks and blazers for the boys, plaid skirts and white blouses for the girls.

They were checking out the treats — and the boys were probably wondering if they could cop a spiked punch — but would refrain from anything until after the twenty-minute concert. The kids took their music seriously and sweets tended to clog the throat, her grandson had explained.

She hugged the blond, good-looking boy and shook the hand of the chorus director.

“Everyone, everyone!” she called. “Take your seats.”

And the children climbed up onstage, taking their positions.

The clock in the interrogation room registered 3:51.

Dance broke off the debate for a moment and read and sent several text messages, as Wayne Keplar watched with interest.

3:52.

“Your expression tells me the news isn’t good. Not making much headway elsewhere?”

Kathryn Dance didn’t respond. She slipped her phone away. “I’m not finished with our discussion, Wayne. Now, I pointed out you were hypocritical to kill the very people you purport to represent.”

“And I pointed out a hole a mile wide with that argument.”

“Killing also goes against another tenet of yours.”

Wayne Keplar said calmly, “How so?”

“You want religion taught in school. So you must be devout. Well, killing the innocent is a sin.”

He snickered. “Oh, please, Ms. Firecracker. Read the Bible sometime: God smites people for next to nothing. Because somebody crosses Him or to get your attention. Or because it’s Tuesday, I don’t know. You think everybody drowned in Noah’s flood was guilty of something?”

“So al-Qaeda’s terrorist tactics are okay?”

“Well, al-Qaeda itself—’cause they want the strongest government of all. It’s called a theocracy. No respect for individuals. But their tactics? Hell, yes. I admire the suicide bombers. If I was in charge, though, I’d reduce all Islamic countries to smoking nuclear craters.”

Kathryn Dance looked desperately at the clock, which showed nearly 3:57.

She rubbed her face as her shoulders slumped. Her weary eyes pleaded. “Is there anything I can say to talk you into stopping this?”

3:58.

“No, you can’t. Sometimes the truth is more important than the individuals. But,” he added with a sincere look. “Kathryn, I want to say that I appreciate one thing.”

No more Ms. Firecracker.

“What’s that?” she said in a whisper, eyes on the clock.

“You took me seriously. That talk we just had. You disagree, but you treated me with respect.”

4 p.m.

Both law officer and suspect remained motionless, staring at the clock.

A phone in the room rang. She leaned over and hit the speaker button fast. “Yes?”

The staticky voice, a man’s. “Kathryn, it’s Albert. I’m sorry to have to tell you…”

She sighed. “Go on.”

“It was an IED, plastic of some sort…We don’t have the count yet. Wasn’t as bad as it could be. Seems the device was under a stage and that absorbed some of the blast. But we’re still looking at fifteen or so dead, maybe fifty injured…Hold on. CHP’s calling. I’ll get back to you.”

Dance disconnected, closed her eyes briefly then glared at Keplar. “How could you?”

Wayne frowned; he wasn’t particularly triumphant. “I’m sorry, Kathryn. This is the way it had to be. It’s a war out there. Besides, score one for your side — only fifteen dead. We screwed up.”

Dance shivered in anger. But she calmly said, “Let’s go.”

She rose and knocked on the door. It opened immediately and two large CBI agents came in, also glaring. One reshackled Keplar’s hands behind him, hoping, it seemed, for an excuse to Taser the prisoner. But the man was the epitome of decorum.

One agent muttered to Dance, “Just heard, the death count’s up to—”

She waved him silent, as if denying Keplar the satisfaction of knowing the extent of his victory.

She led the prisoner out the back of CBI, toward a van that would ultimately transport him to the Salinas lockup.

“We’ll have to move fast,” she told the other agents. “There’re going to be a lot of people who’d like to take things into their own hands.”

The area was largely deserted. But just then Dan Simmons, the blogger who’d pestered Dance earlier, the Jude Law lookalike, peered around the edge of the building as if he’d been checking every few minutes to see if they’d make a run for it this way. Simmons hurried toward them, along with his unwashed cameraman.

Dance ignored him.

Simmons asked, “Agent Dance, could you comment on the failure of law enforcement to stop the bombing in time?”

She said nothing and kept ushering Keplar toward the van.

“Do you think this will be the end of your career?”

Silence.

“Wayne, do you have anything to say?” the blog reporter asked.

Eyes on the camera lens, Keplar called, “It’s about time the government started listening to people like Osmond Carter. This never would have happened if he hadn’t been illegally arrested!”

“Wayne, what do you have to say about killing innocent victims?”

“Sacrifices have to be made,” he called.

Simmons called, “But why these particular victims? What’s the message you’re trying to send?”

“That maybe bankers shouldn’t be throwing themselves fancy holiday parties with the money they’ve stolen from the working folk of this country. The financial industry’s been raping citizens for years. They claim—”

“Okay, hold it,” Dance snapped to the agents flanking Keplar, who literally jerked him to a stop.

Dance was pulling out a walkie-talkie. “Michael, it’s Kathryn, you read me?”

“Four by four. We’ve got six choppers and the entire peninsula com network standing by. You’re patched in to all emergency frequencies. What do you have?”

“The target’s a party — Christmas, I’d guess — involving bankers, or savings and loan people, bank regulators, something like that. It is a bomb and it’s under the stage in that room you texted me about.”

Wayne Keplar stared at her, awash in confusion.

A half-dozen voices shot from her radio, variations of “Roger…Copy that…Checking motels with banquet rooms in the target zone, south of Moss Landing…Contacting all banks in the target zone.”

“What is this?” Keplar raged.

Everyone ignored him.

A long several minutes passed, Dance standing motionless, head down, listening to the intersecting voices through the radio. And then: “This is Major Rodriguez, CHP. We’ve got it! Central Coast Bankers’ Association, annual Christmas party, Monterey Bay Seaside Motel. They’re evacuating now.”

Wayne Keplar’s eyes grew wide as he stared at Dance. “But the bomb…” He glanced at Dance’s wrist and those of the other officers. They’d all removed their watches, so Keplar couldn’t see the real time. He turned to an agent and snapped, “What the hell time is it?”

“About ten to four,” replied Dan Simmons, the reporter.

He blurted to Dance, “The clock? In the interrogation room?”

“Oh,” she said, guiding him to the prisoner transport van. “It was fast.”

A half hour later Michael O’Neil arrived from the motel where the bankers’ party had been interrupted.

He explained that everyone got out safely, but there’d been no time to try to render the device safe. The explosion was quite impressive. The material was probably Semtex, Abbott Calderman had guessed, judging from the smell. The Forensic Services head explained to O’Neil that it was the only explosive ever to have its own FAQ on the Internet, which answered questions like: Was it named after an idyllic, pastoral village? (yes). Was it mass produced and shipped throughout the world, as the late President Václav Havel claimed? (no). And was Semtex the means by which its inventor committed suicide? (not exactly — yes, an employee at the plant did blow himself up intentionally, but he had not been one of the inventors).

Dance smiled as O’Neil recounted this trivia.

Steve Nichols of the FBI called and told her they were on the way to the CBI to deliver the other suspect, Gabe Paulson. He explained that since she’d broken the case, it made sense for her to process all the suspects. There would be federal charges — mostly related to the explosives — but those could be handled later.

As they waited in the parking lot for Nichols to arrive, O’Neil asked, “So, how’d you do it? All I know is you called me about three, I guess, and told me to get choppers and a communications team ready. You hoped to have some details about the location of the attack in about forty-five minutes. But you didn’t tell me what was going on.”

“I didn’t have much time,” Dance explained. “What happened was I found out, after wasting nearly an hour, that Keplar was kinesics-proof. So I had to trick him. I took a break at three and talked to our technical department. Seems you can speed up analog clocks by changing the voltage and the frequency of the current in the wiring. They changed the current in that part of the building so the clock started running fast.”

O’Neil smiled. “That was the byword for this case, remember. You said it yourself.”

And remember: We have two and a half hours. We’ve got to move fast…

Dance continued, “I remembered when we got to CBI Keplar started lecturing Dan Simmons about his cause.”

“Oh, that obnoxious reporter and blogger?”

“Right. I called him and said that if he asked Keplar why he picked those particular victims, I’d give him an exclusive interview. And I called you to set up the search teams. Then I went back into the interrogation. I had to make sure Keplar didn’t notice the clock was running fast so I started debating philosophy with him.”

“Philosophy?”

“Well, Wikipedia philosophy. Not the real stuff.”

“Probably real enough nowadays.”

She continued, “You and the Crime Scene people found out that it was probably a bomb and that it was planted in a large room with a stage. When the clock hit four in the interrogation room, I had Albert call me and pretend a bomb had gone off and killed people but the stage had absorbed a lot of the blast. That was just enough information so that Keplar believed it had really happened. Then all I had to do was perp walk him past Simmons, who asked why those particular victims. Keplar couldn’t keep himself from lecturing.

“Sure was close.”

True. Ten minutes meant the difference between life and death for two hundred people, though fate sometimes allowed for even more narrow margins.

One of the FBI’s black SUVs now eased to a stop beside Dance and O’Neil.

Steve Nichols and another agent climbed out and helped their shackled prisoner out. A large bandage covered much of his head and the side of his face. O’Neil stared at him silently.

The FBI agent said, “Kathryn, good luck with this fellow. Wish you the best but he’s the toughest I’ve ever seen — and I’ve been up against al-Qaeda and some of the Mexican cartel drug lords. They’re Chatty Cathy compared with him. Not a single word. Just sits and stares at you. He’s all yours.”

“I’ll do what I can, Steve. But I think there’s enough forensics to put everybody away for twenty years.”

The law enforcers said good-bye and the feds climbed into the Suburban, then sped out of the CBI lot.

Dance began to laugh.

So did the prisoner.

O’Neil asked, “So what’s going on?”

Dance stepped forward and undid the cuffs securing the wrists of her associate, TJ Scanlon. He removed the swaddling, revealing no injuries.

“Thanks, Boss. And by the way, those’re the first words I’ve said in three hours.”

Dance explained to O’Neil, “Gabe Paulson’s in a lot more serious condition than I let on. He was shot in the head during the takedown and’ll probably be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Which might not be that long. I knew Nichols’d wanted to have a part of the case — and for all we knew at that point he had primary jurisdiction. I wanted to interrogate the only suspect we had — Keplar — so I needed to give Nichols someone. TJ volunteered to play Paulson.”

“So you just deceived the FBI.”

“Technically. I know Steve. He’s a brilliant agent. I’d trust him with anything except an interrogation with a deadline like this.”

“Three hours, Boss,” TJ said, rubbing his wrists. “Did I mention not speaking for three hours? That’s very hard for me.”

O’Neil asked, “Won’t he find out, see the pictures of the real Paulson in the press?”

“He was pretty bandaged up. And like I said, it may come back to haunt me. I’ll deal with it then.”

“I thought I was going to be waterboarded.”

“I told him not to do that.”

“Well, he didn’t share your directive with me. I think he would have liked to use cattle prods, too. Oh, and I would’ve given you up in five seconds, Boss. Just for the record.”

Dance laughed.

O’Neil left to return to his office in Salinas and Dance and TJ entered the CBI lobby, just as the head of the office, Charles Overby, joined them. “Here you are.”

The agents greeted the paunchy man who was in his typical workaday outfit: slacks and white shirt with sleeves rolled up, revealing tennis- and golf-tanned arms.

“Thanks, Kathryn. Appreciate what you did.”

“Sure.”

“You were in the operation, too?” Overby asked TJ.

“That’s right. FBI liaison.”

Overby lowered his voice and said approvingly, “They don’t seem to want a cut of the action. Good for us.”

“I did what I could,” TJ said. Then the young man returned to his office, leaving Dance and her boss alone.

Overby turned to Dance. “I’ll need a briefing,” he said, nodding toward the reporters out front. A grimace. “Something to feed to them.”

Despite the apparent disdain, though, Overby was in fact looking forward to the press conference. He always did. He loved the limelight and would want to catch the 6 p.m. local news. He’d also hope to gin up interest in some national coverage.

Dance put her watch back on her wrist and looked at the time. “I can give you the bare bones, Charles, but I’ve got to see a subject in another matter. It’s got to be tonight. He leaves town tomorrow.”

There was a pause. “Well, if it’s critical…”

“It is.”

“All right. Get me a briefing sheet now and a full report in the morning.”

“Sure, Charles.”

He started back to his office and asked, “This guy you’re meeting? You need any backup?”

“No thanks, Charles. It’s all taken care of.”

“Sure. ’Night.”

“Good night.”

Heading to her own office, Kathryn Dance reflected on her impending mission tonight. If Overby had wanted a report on the attempted bombing for CBI headquarters in Sacramento or follow-up interrogations, she would have gladly done that, but since he was interested only in press releases, she decided to stick to her plans.

Which involved a call to her father, a retired marine biologist who worked part-time at the aquarium. She was going to have him pull some strings to arrange special admission after hours for herself and the children tonight.

And the “subject” she’d told Overby she had to meet tonight before he left town? Not a drug lord or a terrorist or a confidential informant…but what was apparently the most imposing cephalopod ever to tour the Central Coast of California.