CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Diego has a plastic Legolas Greenleaf action figure taped to the top of her terminal.

That's the character Orlando Bloom played in Lord of the Rings. The hunky elf with the arrows. As I said: Diego rules when it comes to computer research. And, like all her cybergeek brethren, she's got a pretty heavy thing for LOTR.

“You think this guy is sending you a message?” she asks as she taps some keys. Her fingers dance across the keyboard like she could type a hundred words a minute on an accordion if she wanted to. “Is this some kind of code?”

“It's a possibility,” Ceepak says.

“Awesome. Yesterday, I downloaded a Zip file of a program package that can crack most monoalphabetic substitution ciphers.” She's tapping keys the whole time she's talking except when she grabs a Nacho Cheese Dorito out of the vending machine bag she's having for a late breakfast along with her Mountain Dew.

She's Googling “Marvel Masterpiece Trading Cards.” She recognized the Avengers card as coming from the Masterpiece series. I guess she knows people who collect these kinds of cards-guys she meets at Lord of the Rings fanfests.

Google now sends us off to some comic book Web site.

“Crystal,” Diego mumbles.

“I beg your pardon?” Ceepak asks.

“I think the red-haired chick on the card is called Crystal.” She clicks on a link. “She hangs out with all the other Avengers.”

The screen switches and there she is. Red hair. White leotard. Extra-strength cleavage.

“It comes from the nineteen ninety-six Marvel Masterpiece trading card set made by Fleer,” Diego reads us the information she and Google dug up. “They also have the Human Torch, Invisible Woman. I'm curious …” She clicks the Invisible Woman link. “Thought so. She's wearing blue tights. Why does she need to wear anything if she's supposed to be invisible?”

Diego clicks her back button and we're with Crystal again.

“Nineteen ninety-six,” Ceepak says.

“Yes, sir. I can print this out if you want it.”

“That'll work. Be good to know the mythology surrounding this Crystal character.”

“I think she used to date the Human Torch. They were hot and heavy.”

She doesn't know she's making a joke. I think she thinks this comic book stuff is actually true. That Crystal really did date the Torch.

“Then she moved to the moon and married this mutant named Quicksilver. They had a baby. Luna.”

I'm beginning to wonder whether Diego spends too much time alone in this darkened room, staring at her screen, talking to the little plastic elf.

“What about this movie,” Ceepak says. “The Phantom?”

Diego taps a few more keys and hits return a couple times. Once again, Google comes through.

“Release date: June seventh, nineteen ninety-six.”

“Nineteen ninety-six.”

“Hmmm.”

“What?”

Diego points to something on her screen.

“Catherine Zeta-Jones was in it. Must've been before she was, you know, Catherine Zeta-Jones.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Nineteen ninety-six.”

It's dark in here, but my eyes have slowly adjusted. I can see Ceepak staring at me. McDaniels is staring, too. I figure they both want to ask the same question.

Ceepak goes first.

“Danny-what happened in nineteen ninety-six?”

“Think, Mr. Boyle.” McDaniels moves in closer. “Nineteen ninety-six.”

“You mean like in history?”

“No,” Ceepak says. “In your life.”

“I dunno. Nineteen ninety-six. I was, what? Fifteen.”

“What about in the summer?”

McDaniels takes another step forward. “We've got Derek Jeter, one of baseball's ‘boys of summer.’ We have The Phantom, a summer movie.”

It hits me.

Duh.

“Nineteen ninety-six is the summer we all met. The summer we started hanging out.”

“Who?” McDaniels doesn't know about National Toasted Marshmallow Day.

“Me, Jess, Katie, Becca, Olivia, and Mook.”

“Our primary targets,” says Ceepak. “And our possible shooter.”

“Okay,” McDaniels rubs her tiny hands together. “We're getting someplace.”

“Officer Ceepak?” A young cop from the radio room is at the door.

“Yes?”

“Are you guys still looking for a Harley Mook?”

“Roger that,” Ceepak says.

I glance at the clock. Twelve ten P.M.

“Has he been spotted?” Ceepak's ready to roll.

“No. He just called in.”

“Excuse me?”

“He just called nine-one-one.”

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