"We came by to pick you up, Bob. We have a lead to Phate in Fremont. We've got to move."

"Lead?"

Bishop explained about the tactical operation at the Bay View Motel.

"Okay," the cop said, with a glance toward where his wife now seemed to be crying softly. "I'll be out in a minute. Can you wait in the car?" He then glanced at Gillette. "I don't want him in my house. Okay?"

"Sure, Bob."

Shelton waited until Bishop and Gillette were at the front door before turning back into the bedroom. He hesitated, as if working up his courage, then walked through the doorway into the dim room beyond.

CHAPTER 000011001 / TWENTY-FIVE.

It all comes down to this... One of his mentors on the state police had shared these words with rookie Frank Bishop years ago, on their way to kick in the door of a walk-up apartment near the Oakland docks. Inside were five or six kilos of something the tenants weren't willing to part with, along with some automatic weapons they were all too willing to use.

"It all comes down to this," the older cop had said. "Forget about the backup and medevac choppers and newscasters and public affairs and the bra.s.s in Sacramento and radios and computers. What it comes down to is you versus a perp. You kick in a door, you chase somebody down a blind alley, you walk up to the driver's side of a car where the guy behind the wheel's staring straight ahead, maybe a fine citizen, maybe holding his wallet and license, maybe holding his d.i.c.k, maybe holding a Browning .380, hammer back to single action and safety off. See what I'm saying?"

Oh, Bishop saw perfectly: Going through that door was what being a cop was all about.

Speeding now toward the Bay View Motel in Fremont, where Phate was currently raiding the CCU's computer, Frank Bishop was thinking of what that cop had told him so many years ago.

He was thinking too of what he'd noticed in the San Ho warden's file on Wyatt Gillette - the article the hacker had written, calling the computer world the Blue Nowhere.

Which was, Frank Bishop decided, a phrase that could apply to the cop world too.

Blue for the uniform.

Nowhere because that place on the other side of the door you're about to kick in, or down that alleyway, or in that front seat of the stopped car is different from anywhere else on G.o.d's good earth.

It all comes down to this...

Shelton, still moody from the incident at his home, was driving. Bishop sat in the back. Gillette was in the front pa.s.senger seat (Shelton wouldn't hear of an unshackled prisoner sitting behind two officers).

"Phate's still online, trying to crack the CCU files," Gillette said. The hacker was studying the screen on a laptop, online via a cell phone.

They arrived at the Bay View Motel. Bob Shelton braked hard and skidded into the parking lot where a uniformed cop directed him.

There were a dozen state police and highway patrol cars in the lot and a number of uniformed, plainclothes and armor-suited tactical officers cl.u.s.tered around them. This lot was next door to the Bay View but was out of sight of the windows.

In another Crown Victoria were Linda Sanchez, along with Tony Mott, who was decked out in his Oakley sungla.s.ses - despite the overcast and mist - and rubberized shooting gloves. Bishop wondered how he could keep Mott from hurting himself and anyone else during the operation.

Stylish Tim Morgan, today in a double-breasted forest-green suit, whose cut was ruined by a bulletproof vest, noticed Bishop and Shelton and ran up to the car. Bent down to the window.

Catching his breath, he said, "Guy fitting Holloway's description checked in two hours ago under the name Fred Lawson. Paid cash. He filled out the car information on the motel registration card but there's no match in the lot. The tag number was fake. He's in room one-eighteen. The blinds're down but he's still on the phone."

Bishop glanced at Gillette. "He still online?"

Gillette looked at his laptop screen. "Yep."

Bishop, Shelton and Gillette climbed from the car. Sanchez and Mott joined them.

"Al," Bishop called to a well-built black trooper. Alonso Johnson was head of the state police's tactical team in San Jose. Bishop liked him because he was as calm and methodical as an inexperienced officer like, say, Tony Mott, was dangerously gung ho. "What's the scenario?" Bishop asked.

The tactical cop opened a diagram of the motel. "We've got troopers here, here, here." He tapped various places around the grounds and in the first-floor corridor. "We don't have much leeway. It'll be a typical motel room takedown. We'll secure the rooms on either side and above his. We've got the pa.s.skey and a chain cutter. We'll just go in through the front door and take him. If he tries to get out the patio door there'll be the second team outside. Snipers're ready - just in case he's got a weapon."

Bishop glanced up and saw Tony Mott strapping on body armor. He picked up a short black automatic shotgun and studied it lovingly. With his wraparound sungla.s.ses and biker shorts he looked like a character in a bad science-fiction film. Bishop motioned the young man over. He asked Mott, "What're you doing with that?" Gesturing at the gun.

"I just thought I ought to have some better firepower."

"You ever fire a scattergun before, Officer?"

"Anybody can--"

"Have you ever fired a shotgun?" Bishop repeated patiently.

"Sure."

"Since firearms training at the academy?"

"Not exactly. But--"

Bishop said, "Put it back."

"And, Officer?" Alonso Johnson muttered. "Lose the sungla.s.ses." He rolled his eyes toward Bishop.

Mott stalked off and handed the gun to a tactical officer.

Linda Sanchez, on her cell phone - undoubtedly with her extremely pregnant daughter - hung back well to the rear. She, for one, didn't need reminding that tactical operations weren't her expertise.

Then Johnson c.o.c.ked his head as he received a transmission. He nodded slightly and then looked up. "We're ready."

Bishop said, "Go ahead," as casually as if he were politely letting someone precede him into an elevator.

The SWAT commander nodded and spoke into the tiny microphone. Then he motioned a half dozen other tactical officers after him and they ran through a line of bushes toward the motel. Tony Mott followed, keeping to the rear as he'd been ordered.

Bishop walked back to the car and tuned the radio to the tactical operations frequency.

It all comes down to this...

From the radio headset he heard Johnson suddenly call, "Go, go, go!"

Bishop tensed, leaning forward. Was Phate waiting for them with a gun? Bishop wondered. Would he be completely surprised? What would happen?

But the answer was: nothing.

A staticky transmission cut through the air on his radio. Alonso Johnson said, "Frank, the room's empty. He's not here."

"Not there?" Bishop asked doubtfully. Wondering if there was a mix-up about which room Phate was in.

Johnson came back on the radio a moment later. "He's gone."

Bishop turned to Wyatt Gillette, who glanced at the computer in the Crown Victoria. Phate was still online and Trapdoor was still trying to crack the personnel file folder. Gillette pointed to the screen and shrugged.

The detective radioed to Johnson, "We can see him transmitting from the motel. He has to be there."

"Negative, Frank," was Johnson's response. "Room's empty, except for a computer here - hooked up to the phone line. A couple of empty cans of Mountain Dew. A half-dozen boxes of computer disks. That's it. No suitcase, no clothes."

Bishop said, "Okay, Al, we're coming in to take a look."

Inside the hot, close motel room a half-dozen troopers opened drawers and checked out closets. Tony Mott stood in the corner, searching as diligently as the rest. The soldier's Kevlar headgear looked a lot less natural on him than his biker's helmet, Gillette concluded.

Bishop motioned Gillette toward the computer, which sat on the cheap desk. On the screen he saw the decryption program. He typed a few commands then frowned. "h.e.l.l, it's fake. The software's decrypting the same paragraph over and over again."

"So," Bishop considered, "he tricked us into thinking he was here... But why?"

They debated this for a few minutes but no one could come to any solid conclusion - until Wyatt Gillette happened to open the lid of a large plastic disk-storage box and glance inside. He saw an olive-drab metal box, stenciled with these words: U.S. ARMY ANTIPERSONNEL CHARGE.

HIGH EXPLOSIVE. THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY.

It was attached to a small black box, on which a single red eye began to blink rapidly.

CHAPTER 00011010 / TWENTY-SIX.

Phate did happen to be in a motel at the moment. That motel was in Fremont, California. And he was in front of a laptop computer.

However, the motel was a Ramada Inn two miles away from the Bay View, where Gillette - the Judas traitor Valleyman - and the cops were undoubtedly fleeing the room at the moment, escaping from the antipersonnel bomb they were certain would detonate at any minute.

It wouldn't; the box was filled with sand and the only thing the device was capable of doing was scaring the s.h.i.t out of anyone who was standing close enough to it to see the made-for-TV blinking light on the supposed detonator.

Phate, of course, would never kill his adversaries in such an inelegant way. That would've been far too gauche a tactic for someone whose goal was, like a player of the MUD game Access, to get close enough to his victims to feel their quaking hearts as he slipped a blade into them. Besides, killing a dozen cops would have brought in the feds in a big way and he'd have been forced to give up on the game here in Silicon Valley. No, he was content to keep Gillette and the cops from the CCU busy for an hour or so at the Bay View while the bomb squad got the mean-looking device out of the room - and giving Phate a chance to do what he'd planned all along: Use the Computer Crime Unit's machine to crack into ISLEnet. He needed to log on through CCU because ISLEnet would recognize him as a root user and give him unlimited access to the network.

Phate had played plenty of MUD games with Valleyman and knew that Gillette antic.i.p.ated Phate would break into CCU's machine and would try to trace him when he did.

So, after Trapdoor had broken into CCU's computer Phate had driven from the Bay View Motel to this place, where his second laptop was warmed up and waiting for him, online via a virtually untraceable cell phone connection through a South Carolina Internet provider, linked to an anonymizing Net launch pad in Prague.

Phate now looked at some of the files he'd copied when he'd first cracked into CCU's system. These files had been erased but not wiped - that is, permanently obliterated -and he now restored them easily with Restores, a powerful undelete program. He found the CCU's computer identification number and then, after a bit more searching, the following data: System: ISLEnet Login: RobertSShelton Pa.s.sword: BlueFord Database: California State Police Criminal Activity Archives Search Request: (Wyatt Gillette OR Gillette/ Wyatt OR Knights of Access OR Gillette, W.) AND (compute* OR hack*).

He then changed his own laptop computer's ident.i.ty number and Internet address to that of CCU's machine then ordered the computer's modem to dial the general ISLEnet access phone number. He heard the whistle and hum of the electronic handshake. This was the moment when the firewall protecting ISLEnet would have rejected any outsider's attempt to get inside but, because Phate's computer appeared to be CCU's, ISLEnet recognized it as a super-access "trusted system" and Phate was instantly welcomed inside. The system then asked: Username?

Phate typed: RobertSShelton Pa.s.scode?

He typed: BlueFord Then the screen went blank and some very boring graphics appeared, followed by: California Integrated State Law Enforcement Network Main Menu Department of Motor Vehicles State Police Department of Vital Statistics Forensic Services Local Law Enforcement Agencies Los Angeles Sacramento San Francisco San Diego Monterey County Orange County Santa Barbara County Other Office of the State Attorney General Federal Agencies FBI.

ATF.

Treasury U.S. Marshals IRS.

Postal Service Other Mexican Federal Police, Tijuana Legislative Liaison Systems Administration Like a lion grabbing a gazelle's neck, Phate went straight into the systems administration file. He cracked the pa.s.scode and seized root, which gave him unrestricted access to ISLEnet and to all of the systems ISLEnet was in turn connected to.

He then returned to the main menu and clicked on another entry.

State Police Highway Patrol Division Human Resources Accounting Computer Crimes Violent Felonies Juvenile Criminal Activity Archive Data Processing Administrative Services Tactical Operations Major Crimes Legal Department Facilities Management Felony Warrants Outstanding Phate didn't need to waste any time making up his mind. He already knew exactly where he wanted to go.

The bomb squad had taken the gray box out of the Bay View Motel and dismantled it, only to find that it was filled with sand.

"What the h.e.l.l was the point of that?" Shelton snapped. "Is this part of his f.u.c.king games? Messing with our minds?"

Bishop shrugged.

The squad had also examined Phate's computer with nitrogen-sensing probes and declared it explosives-free. Gillette now scrolled through it quickly. The machine contained hundreds of files - he opened some at random.

"They're gibberish."

"Encrypted?" Bishop asked.

"No - look, just s.n.a.t.c.hes of books, Web sites, graphics. It's all filler." Gillette looked up, squinting, staring at the ceiling, his fingers typing in the air. "What's it all mean, the fake bomb, the gibberish files?"

Tony Mott, who'd discarded his armor and helmet, said, "All right. Phate set this whole thing up to get us out of the office, to keep us busy... Why?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Gillette snapped. "I know why!"

Frank Bishop did too. He looked quickly at Gillette and said, "He's trying to crack ISLEnet!"

"Right!" Gillette confirmed. He grabbed the phone and called CCU.

"Computer Crimes. Sergeant Miller here."

"It's Wyatt. Listen--"

"Did you find him?"

"No. Listen to me. Call the sysadmin at ISLEnet and have him suspend the entire network. Right now."

A pause. "They won't do that," Miller said. "It's--"

"They have to. Now! Phate's trying to crack it. He's probably inside already. Don't shut it down - make sure it's suspended. That'll give me a chance to a.s.sess the damage."