3rd Degree

This is not a plea. This is a demand.

Enjoy your wealth, Mr. Lightower. Your little Caitlin is counting on you.

The message was signed, August Spies.

I skimmed through the rest of the e-mails. Each was more belligerent. The menu of the world’s ills more grievous.

You’re ignoring us, Mr. Lightower. The board has not complied. We intend to act. Your little Caitlin is counting on you.

“How could you not turn these over to us?” I stared at Zi

“In retrospect, I understand how this must appear.” The lawyer hung his head. “But companies receive threats all the time.”

“This isn’t just a threat.” I tossed the e-mails back on my desk. “It’s extortion, coercion. You’re a lawyer, Zi

“I understand.” The lawyer nodded sheepishly, handing over the file.

I skimmed over the e-mail addresses. Footsy123@ hotmail.com. [email protected] /* */ Both signed the same. August Spies. I turned to Jacobi. “What do you think, Warren? Can we trace these?”

“We already put them through our own investigation,” Zi

“You traced them.” I looked up, shocked.

“We’re an e-traffic security company. All of them are free Internet providers. No user billing address. Nothing needed to open an account. You could go to the library, the airport, anywhere there’s an open-access online terminal and open one yourself. This one was sent from a kiosk at the Oakland airport. This one from a Kinko’s near Berkeley on University. These two, from the public library. They’re untraceable.”

I figured Zi

“We may not know who they are, but we know where they are.”

“The People’s Republic of Berkeley,” Jacobi said, and sniffed. “Well, I’ll be.”

Chapter 29

I stole away for a quick lunch with Cindy Thomas. Dim sum at the Long Life Noodle Company in Yerba Buena Gardens.

“You see the Chronicle this morning?” she asked, a pork dumpling sliding off her chopsticks as we sat on a ledge outside. “We lowered the boom on X/L.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t be needing you to run a follow-up.”

“So, now it’s your turn, right, to do a little rhythm for me.”

“Cindy, I’m thinking this isn’t going to be my case much longer, especially if anything leaks out to the press.”

“At least tell me”—she looked at me solidly—“if I should be feeling these two murders are related?”

“What makes you think they’re related?”

“Gee,” she chortled, “two big-time businessmen murdered in the same city two days apart. Both of them ran companies on the wrong side of the headlines lately.”

“Two totally different MOs.” I held my ground.

“Oh? On one hand, we have a greedy corporate high roller sucking off tens of millions while his sales are going to rot; the other’s hiding behind a bunch of high-priced lobbyists trying to screw poor people. Both are dead. Violently. What was the question, Linds? Why do I think they might be related?”

“Okay.” I exhaled. “You know our arrangement? Absolutely nothing gets into print without my okay.”

“Someone’s targeting these people, aren’t they?” She didn’t mean the two already dead. I knew what she was saying.

I put the noodle container down. “Cindy, you keep your ear to the ground across the bay, don’t you?”

“Berkeley? I guess. If you mean pitching in with a couple of ‘real-life success’ pep talks in Journalism 403.”

“I mean under the radar. People who’re capable of causing trouble.” I took in a breath and looked at her worriedly. “This kind of trouble.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. She paused, then shrugged. “There is stuff happening over there. We’ve all become so used to being part of the system, we forget what it’s like to be on the other side. There are people who are growing … how should I put it … fed up. There are people whose message just isn’t getting out.”

“What kind of message?” I pressed.

“You wouldn’t hear it. For God’s sake, you’re the police. You’re a million miles away from these things, Lindsay. I’m not saying you don’t have a social conscience. But what do you do when you read that twenty percent of the people don’t have health insurance or that ten-year-old girls in Indonesia are pressed into stitching Nikes for a dollar a day. You turn the page, just like I do. Lindsay, you’re go

“I’m going to give you a name,” I said. “This can’t appear in print. You run it around on your own time. Anything you find, no copyeditors. No ‘I have to protect my sources.’ You come to me first. Me, only. Are we right on this?”

“We’re right,” Cindy said. “So give me the name already.”

Chapter 30

“Beautiful,” Malcolm whispered, his eyes narrowed through surgeon’s operating lenses at the bomb on the kitchen table.

With still hands, he twisted the thin red and green wires that ran from the explosive brick into the terminal on the blasting cap and molded the soft, puttylike C-4 into the frame of the briefcase. “It’s a shame to have to blow this up,” he exclaimed, admiring his own work.

Michelle had come into the room and she placed a hand tremulously on Mal’s shoulder. He knew this scared the shit out of her—wiring the thing, current and charges going everywhere.

“Relax, honey. No juice, no boost. It’s the most stable thing in the world right now.”

Julia was on the floor, listening to the TV, the auburn wig ditched after her assignment last night. There was a news interruption about the murder at the Clift. “Listen.” She turned it up.

“While police are not yet linking Bengosian’s death to Sunday’s bombing at the home of a prominent Bay Area tycoon, sources say there is evidence to co

Julia turned down the volume. “Attractive?” She gri

Michelle pretended to laugh, but inside, she wished she hadn’t been so stupid as to leave that goddamn inhaler lying around. She wasn’t like Julia, who had killed a man last night looking right in his eyes. And now she was laughing about it, gloating.

“Mica, honey.” Malcolm turned around. “I need you to be a brave girl and place your finger on this spot.” He taped the wired blasting cap to the soft C-4 and molded in the rigged cell phone. “This is the delicate part. I just need you to hold the green and red wires, baby, so they don’t cross.… That would be very bad.”

Mal always made fun of her. Just a Wisconsin cheese head, he would say with a laugh. But she had proved herself. She put her finger on the wire, trying to show that she was brave. She wasn’t a farm girl anymore.

“Nothing to get worried about.” Malcolm winked, seeing her unease. “All that drama about crossing the wires, that’s for the movies. Now what is certifiably hairy is that I set these little wires to the ringer, not the phone battery; otherwise, they’ll be picking up our parts as far away as Eau St. Claire.” Her hometown.

Michelle’s finger was trembling. She didn’t know if he was toying with her or not.

“Done.” Malcolm finally exhaled, pushing the lenses up onto his brow. He wheeled back in the chair. “Juiced, as they say, and revved up to roar. Blow the dome right off of City Hall. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea.