"The banks?" Maude said. "I'd have said you were ripping off the people whose credit cards you stole."

  "Only if they're stupid enough to pay," Evans said. Talking seemed to help his nerves—he'd gone from scared to boastful. "Sooner or later they'll all skip town or declare bankruptcy anyway, and the credit card company has to eat it. Why shouldn't I get something out of it?"

  "Where did Blake come in?"

  "I needed someone to pick up the stuff and sell it," Evans said. "I figured that was the part where you were the most likely to get caught."

  "Oh, so you had your friend do it?" Tim couldn't help saying.

  "He wasn't a friend, he was just this guy I knew from school," Evans said. "His older brother was always getting into trouble for stealing, so I figured he could probably figure out where to fence stuff."

  "How did you keep the police from finding you when they began following Blake?" Maude asked.

  Access Denied 225

  "That was one of the good parts," Evans said. "We'd meet every couple of nights in different fast-food places. He'd come in and after he'd been there for a while, he'd go to the John and stick a plastic bag in the toilet tank with the money and the paperwork from all the packages, so I could track what had come in. And then I'd go to the John, pick up the money, and replace it with the address of the next drop-off house."

  "Smart," Maude said. "If he didn't hand over the money, he didn't get any more stuff to sell."

  "Exactly," Evans said. He smiled, and Tim decided that the "SlyKyle" e-mail address was aptly chosen.

  "When did you realize something was wrong?" Maude asked.

  "We were supposed to have an exchange in McDonald's that night," Evans said. "I waited till midnight, and he never showed. So I drove by his house—I figured if his van was still there, I could find a pay phone, call his house, give him hell. And I saw a police car."

  "You went into hiding?"

  Evans nodded.

  "I didn't hear about the murder until the next day," he said. "But I knew something had gone way wrong."

  Maude glanced back at Tim and then at Claudia, as if she wasn't sure what to ask.

  "You always got the credit card numbers from your job?" Claudia asked. "You didn't start getting any from some other source?"

  "Where else would I get them?" Evans asked, "I'm not a crook."

  "Do you know the name Nestor Garcia?" Tim asked.

  Evans shook his head, and his face showed no sign of recognition.

  "Look, I'm not a lawyer," Maude said. "But I bet a good lawyer could probably make a case for extenuating circum-

  stances. Get you oft lightly. Just let us bring in our lawyer, and you can talk to her and—"

  "It's not going to work." Evans said. "Even if I—"

  He paused as if a sudden thought had hit him. And then he made a small sound, and stepped forward, into the room.

  A tall man in an Arizona Diamondbacks cap stepped into the room, holding a gun to Evans's head. Tim's lists clenched instinctively when he recognized Ishmael. Maudes burglar. The man who'd probably killed Nikki.

  "Surprise." Ishmael said.

  Tim heard a muffled thump and saw a splash of blood on the doorframe. So that's what a silencer looks like, Tim thought, as Evans's body slumped to the floor and Ishmael turned the gun in his direction.

  None of my human friends are answering Should I call 911 ? Tor all I know, they 'ie already caught whoever knocked Sam out and are in the middle of interrogating h■<;»:. r Eu both. Or they could all be knocked out. d at gunpoint. .had —/ had no way of knowing. And just u bat u as 1 supposed to say to 911. any u ay ? The last J. Ydpretended to be Maudes burglar alarm. They'd but Maude isn't out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but ft .ties around. I had a feeling that out here it could take the police a long time to answer an automated burglar

  thing u as oi er. hou u ere u e supposed t plain an automated call from a nonexis:. n?

  V rri He'd . me quickly enough before, when he thought Maudi was in trouble. I used one of our corporate cell phom

  .: messa-y. :s's cellphom. "Help!" it

  said. "Maude in danger! Send ambulance!" Then I gate the ad-./ signed Sam's name to it. I waked rhing to hap: ailing back to

  Access Denied 2E7

  see if the message was a hoax. Seconds ticked by. Should I send another message? What if Norris was asleep or something?

  Just then, I noticed that Casey was calling in on his cell phone. Not now! I wanted to snap. Probably another damned pizza delivery to Evans's apartment. Maybe we should just have told Casey to stand down, instead of assigning him to watch the monitors. But I peeled off a subroutine to deal with Casey. Calmly, politely, kindly. While I tried to find something else I could do to —

  And then my attention snapped back to Casey.

  "Turing?" he was saying. "Are you there? What should I do — they got that lady lawyer."

  "Casey? What are you talking about? I thought you went home —/ can see you logged in."

  "Yeah, Vm logged in on my laptop. I know I was supposed to go back and watch the monitors, but I had this feeling, you know, so I drove out of sight and then I came back. And I saw this guy sneak up behind the lady lawyer in the convertible and knock her out and steal your laptop."

  "Casey, where are you now?"

  "Vm in the bushes by the driveway. I think the guy went inside. What should I do?"

  I thought of asking him to check on Sam. See if she was still breathing. But what good would that do? He wasn't a medic. Yd already called for an ambulance. I needed to rescue Tim, Maude, and Claudia. But how?

  "Casey — do you have any more equipment in your car?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like cameras, microphones, speakers, a laptop — any of that?"

  "Yeah, some," he said. "I brought spares, in case something didn't work when I hooked it up to your laptop. The one he stole."

  "Go back to your car," I said. "I have an idea."

  Yd foiled Maude's prowler. Maybe it would work again. While Casey hastily assembled hardware from his trunk, I tried to find something that would work. I didn't think dogs and a deep, male

  voice would be enough this tune. Especially if either Nestor Garcia or Ishmael had attacked Sam. 7 'hey 'd probably figured out my invisible Dobermans. And they'd only laugh at a sharp command from Humphrey Bo gar t.

  "Okay." Casey said. "Booting up. You should have picture and sound right about. . . now."

  Not much of a picture, since the only light was the one that came on when Casey opened his trunk. And not a very fast connection. But it was enough. I had eyes.

  "Okay?" he asked.

  The microphones picked it up along with the cell phone. I had ears.

  "Okay." I said. And I had a voice: the microphones caught the word when it came out of the speakers. I added a sort of echo effect. "How's this?"

  "Like you're talking through a cheap PA system." Casey said, shutting off his phone. "Want me to adjust it?"

  "So. that's the effect I want." I said. "A cheap PA system, or maybe a bullhorn. Now take me closer."

  "Closer?"

  "Take me right up to one of the windows of the house. "

  "Okay."

  The picture jiggled wildly as he picked up the laptop and began walking fast. Running, actually.

  I saw the occasional recognizable landmark. The mailbox. Sam's car. I realized I should have told him to sneak around the back. If whoever had attacked Sam was watching, or had someone else watching . . .

  Too late to do anything about it now. He dropped from a run to a fast, crouching walk as he approached the house.

  "To the left." I said, softly. I could hear voices coming from the room on the left.

  Still crouching. Casey slid through the bushes until he was right under tht window. Hi hadn't had time to rig any kind of controls.

  Access Denied ZZ^

  just the raw feed. He lifted the camera to the window sill and I heard a faint ripping sound as he pulled a piece of duct tape off of his sleeve and taped the camera to the window frame, the lens pointing at the glass.

  I saw Ishmael standing in a doorway at the other side of the room, holding a gun. A still form was slumped at his feet — Evans? Probably. Tim, Maude, and Claudia stood on this side, looking at him. Ishmael was smiling, but I didn't think it was a real smile. I suspected something bad was about to happen.

  Okay, here goes, I thought. While Casey rigged the equipment, Vd siftedthrough my audio indexes. At first, I didn't find anything useful. Scraps of movies, scraps of music, scraps of conversations with my friends, scraps of phone conversations.

  Phone conversations. I found a clip of Dan Norris talking to Maude's secretary.

  "Hello, this is Special Agent Dan Norris of the FBI calling," it said. "May I speak to Maude Graham?"

  Could I come up with enough clips of Norris's voice to pull this off? If I couldn't, we were out of luck. But since I couldn't think of any other ideas, we were out of luck anyway if I didn't at least try. I took the first sentence, removed the first and last words, jacked up the volume, and played it.

  "This is Special Agent Dan Norris of the FBI."

  While that played, I searched some more, pulling scraps from that same conversation — "when the Fairfax County Police told me . . . what you and your friends are up to . . . level with me."

  "The Fairfax County Police . . . are . . . with me," I added — smoothing the spaces between the words, of course, so it sounded normal. To me, at least. Then again, I was no expert.

  Unfortunately, I didn't have clips of Norris saying anything that even remotely resembled "The building is surrounded. Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up." After a few nanoseconds of trying to figure out how to piece it together from the

  bits I had. I decided to turn the virtual megaphone over to the Fairfax Count) Police. After all. I'd just said they were there.

  Although come to think of it. we were in Loudoun County now. I hoped Ishmael wouldn't notice.

  "You're surrounded." I boomed, in a male voice. "Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!"

  Hurray for the cavalryn Tim thoughtn when he heard Dan Norm's voice outside. Ishmael looked annoyed. With his free left hand, he shoved back the cap that almost covered his eyes, and he stepped out of the doorway and into the end ot the room farthest from Maude, Tim, and Claudia.

  'Move over there, all of you," he said, pointing with the gun. "Now!"

  The corner he was herding them into was farther from the front door, and it also got them away from the window.

  "Wait—you," the gunman said, pointing at Claudia. "Over to the window. Look out and tell me what you see."

  Claudia obediently went over to the window and looked out.

  Tim worked on not grinning. Obviously Ishmael was a lousy judge of character it he thought Claudia the most harmless of their trio. Just a little closer, and maybe Claudia could take him.

  "What do you see?" Ishmael demanded.

  "Nothing," Claudia said, shaking her head. "It's too dark out there."

  "Keep looking," he said.

  And then while Claudia was still ostentatiously peering out, Ishmael stepped forward and struck her head with the butt of the gun. By the time Tim realized what was happening, Ishmael had the unconscious Claudia in tront ot him like a shield, with the gun pointed at her head.

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  Come on, he pleaded silently. Be faking it. Give that creep a big surprise.

  Claudia didn't move.

  Maybe Ishmael wasn't such a bad judge of character after all. He'd just disabled his most physically dangerous opponent.

  "Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!" the police ordered outside.

  Ishmael stood behind a curtain, where he could see out without being seen, but he was holding Claudia in plain view. If someone outside saw her, and took a shot . . .

  Something tapped the window, and a flash of movement caught Tim's eye. A hand had appeared, trying to attach something to the window frame.

  Suddenly Ishmael laughed, and fired one shot through the window. Along with the tinkle of breaking glass, Tim heard a shriek, and then someone running away.

  "God damn!" Ishmael said, shaking his head. "You almost got me again with your clever tricks."

  Tim recognized the object now—a little camera. Had Sam realized they were in trouble and brought Turing's laptop to the window to fake an FBI raid?

  "You have to make this harder, don't you?" Ishmael said, shaking his head as if disappointed at their lack of cooperation. "I'm supposed to give you a message. From an old acquaintance. That whatever you were trying to pull with that credit card stunt—it hasn't done you any good. If you were trying to set a trap, looks like it backfired on you, doesn't it?"

  He smiled, and moved his arm so now they could see the gun, aimed at Claudia's head again.

  He's going to shoot her in front of us, and then shoot us, Tim thought.

  "Attention, inside the house. This is the police. You are surrounded. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands in plain sight."

  "Don't you people ever give up?" Ishmael said, shaking his head. He dropped Claudia, who fell with a sickening thud, and stepped a little closer to the window.

  "I repeat," came the voice outside. "This is the police. You are surrounded. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands in plain sight."

  Ishmael glanced at Tim and Maude, then stepped forward in front of the window, fired once—in the direction of the voice, Tim presumed—and turned quickly back to point the gun at them. He waited, listening. If he does that again, I go for him, Tim thought.

  Ishmael whirled again to fire, and Tim launched himself across the room, shouting incoherently. As he leaped, he realized that this time, echoes had followed the shot, two of them. He smashed into Ishmael, knocking him down, and grappled for the gun. He had the gun in his hand and was trying to stand up with it before he noticed the blood. Blood all over his hands, and all down the front of his clothes, and the gun was slick with it.

  He dropped the gun and looked over at Ishmael. He was dead.

  "It's okay," Maude said, coming up beside him and patting his shoulder.

  "Either the police really are out there," Tim said, his voice shaking. "Or Turing has a lot of explaining to do."

  Once agaitii I lost all sound and picture. Not as startling this time, since I expected it. But even more stressful, because this time I knew much more about what had gone wrong. Ishmael had shot Kyle Evans, clubbed Claudia and probably Sam, fired a shot at Casey, and was probably even now grappling with Tim. And I could do nothing. I didn't even know what was happening.

  / tried calling Casey's cell phone. He answered in the middle of the second ring.

  "Hello?" he said, in a stage whisper.

  "Casey, are you all right?"

  "I don't know," he said. "I've been shot."

  "Where?"

  "Right outside the window, when I was — oh, you mean where was I shot. In the arm. It's bleeding. I feel funny. What does it feel like when you're about to pass out?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I've never actually done that. Is there someone who can help you? Do the police know you've been shot?"

  "I'm not sure they even know I'm here," he said. "I didn't want to bother them while they were so busy."

  "Let them know you're there right away," I said. "You don't want them shooting at you, too, do you?"

  "That's true," he said. "Oh, good, Maude and Tim just walked out."

  "Tell me what's happening."

  Casey stayed on the phone long enough to tell me that my other friends were alive, though not unharmed. Maude was fine. Sam and Claudia were injured but alive. Tim was alive, and though soaked in blood for some reason, he appeared unharmed.

  Then I sent Casey off to present himself to the police and have his arm fixed.

  He didn't see Evans or the gunman come out. I suspect they are dead. I only hope Maude got enough information to make this whole thing worthwhile.

  And I won't get to talk to my friends until the police are finished with them. I'm settling in for a long wait.

  Tim lost track of how many hours they spent at the police station, answering questions, separately, and then as a group. It all sounded so plausible the

  way Maude, Sam, and Claudia spun it out. If you left out Turing and the burglary—and they all did that, instinctively, even Casey and Claudia, who didn't know how touchy mentioning Turing could get—it just sounded as if they'd made a bunch of good guesses.

  "So you guessed that this Professional Recovery Systems place was the source of the credit card information," the detective said.

  "The way these guys were running the scam, I figured it had to be a collection agency," Claudia said. Okay, Tim thought, technically Turing had figured it out, with some help from him, but there was that goal of not bringing Turing's name in. For that matter, he didn't mind if they left his name out, too.

  "And PRS was the only local creditor that had my client on its books," Sam added.

  "It was an educated guess," Maude said. "But it turned out to be correct." p

  "And then when I found out that this young guy who worked in skip tracing stopped showing up the day after the murder—bingo!"

  "Another educated guess," Maude said, frowning at Claudia. "If we'd had anything concrete we would have reported it."

  "Okay, a guess—a hunch, if you like," Claudia said, only slightly subdued. "But I was right, wasn't I?"

  "But how did you find him?" the detective asked.

  "We sent him an e-mail," Maude said.

  That was the part that took the most explaining. By the third time Maude took the detective through the explanation of the tracking graphic, complete with little diagrams, Tim almost understood it himself.

  "So once you found him, why didn't you call us?" the detective asked.

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  "We found him, yeah, but we didn't know for sure if he was involved," Claudia said.

  "And if he was involved, he was not only a suspect in his partner's murder, he was also facing the possibility of multiple felony charges in the matter of the credit card thefts," Sam said. "The plan was to get him to accept me as his interim legal counsel so I could arrange for him to turn himself in. Sadly, that plan was overtaken by events."