“It’s like the days after nine-eleven,” she said. “It’s really brutal.”

I KEPT working, since I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Two-thirds of the names in the PalmPilot sync list were identifiable through Google: I’d stick the name in and the information would pop up. Most of the names were associated with the Intelligence Committee and belonged to minor political onions in the Washington stew. Others belonged to computer people, and only a few seemed to be personal.

The personal names were the hardest to get information on. Of the dozen names in the file, I struck out on four of them, and while I found the other eight, I couldn’t determine any particular connection between Carp and the person named, except in the case of his dentist.

The DDC Working Group-Bobby remained a mystery.

“WE’RE coming to a blank wall,” I said. We were back at John’s, the three of us together. Marvel was down at city hall, perpetrating some commie plot. Rachel had gone with her, and the two kids were taking a nap.

“Could we hack into CNN and when he attacks, figure out where it’s coming from?” John asked.

I shook my head. “Not unless we had the phone line, right when he was on it. We’d have to monitor thousands of calls.”

“You can’t tell just from his address.”

“Naw. He can just grab a wi-fi system like we did and ship it from some one-time e-mail address. I’m sure that’s what he’s doing, or the feds would have grabbed him by now. He’s like Bobby-he’s coming out of nowhere.”

LuEllen asked the key question: “What do you think about him?”

I said, “He might be nuts. He probably killed Bobby, he lost his job and he has no money and he’s way deep in debt, he doesn’t seem to have any friends, women don’t like him, his mother just died, he feels like he’s been ripped off by this lawyer.”

“Anything in there about his dog?” John asked.

AFTER more talk, I decided to get in touch with Lemon, Bobby’s successor. Among other things, I needed to tell him that Bobby was dead, in case he didn’t know for sure, and to set up a routine we could use to communicate with each other. I also wanted to check again on the FBI investigation.

That evening LuEllen and I drove down to Greenville and located another warehouse with a friendly wi-fi. I called into the FBI first, went straight to the guy’s folder, and found some snappy memos back and forth from Jackson, the essence of which was that they were getting nowhere. I signed off and went looking for Lemon.

Lemon from 118normalgorgeousredhead:

I am a friend of Bobby’s and a member of the ring. Went to Bobby’s house with another member of ring, found Bobby murdered and his laptop gone. His true name was Robert Fields of Jackson, Mississippi; see news stories on cross-burning in Jackson. We have informed National Security Agency of his identity in effort to close attacks on hack community. We have Bobby’s backup DVDs but they are encrypted. The current holder of the laptop is launching attacks signed Bobby. Apparently not all files are encrypted; we are trying to recover it. We are searching for a man named James Carp, a former employee of U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee who we believe now holds the laptop and is launching the attacks. Any help appreciated. We believe it necessary to find Carp before government agents. Believe agents already searching for him.

– Estragon

I dumped it with a return address, and then went looking in another direction. We had all of his credit card numbers from the bills we’d found at his place. Credit card databases are basic stuff, and I checked the ones I had for card activity: as far as I could tell, he hadn’t used a credit card for a month.

LuEllen had the inspiration: “Check his mom’s cards.”

I did, and immediately found a Shell card that was getting activity. It had been used the afternoon of the shooting-once, an hour later, near Slidell. Had he gone back to his mother’s place, or was he just heading east on I-10? No way to know from just that. But the next use of the card was at a pump in Meridian, Mississippi, way north on I-59. Then, the next morning-just about the time Marvel had been screaming at us about John-he’d used it to charge gas and food in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“Going north,” I said. “Going fast.”

“Headed for Washington.”

“Maybe.”

A HALF-HOUR had passed by the time we finished with the credit cards, and I went back to my dump site. We found a note from Lemon:

Estragon:

YOU MUST RECOVER THE LAPTOP. When I was online with Bobby, he rapidly accessed multiple encrypted laptop files, I believe with encryption codes kept on the laptop itself. I don’t know how codes were kept, but maybe disguised as another encrypted file. While Carp may not be able to use them, any encryption center would break them out almost immediately, if that is how they are disguised. GET THE LAPTOP. I will search for Carp and advise at this address. Much Carp information online. He maintains current address at 1448 Clay Street, Apt. 523, Washington, D.C.

I went back with the three e-mail addresses we had for Carp, suggested that Lemon monitor them, but not give away his presence:

We maybe try to find Carp for face-to-face using e-mail, if nothing else works.

He was back in a second:

Will do that, will begin research now. You go to Washington?

I went back:

Think so. Will advise. Will check here every six hours.

He said,

Who did burning cross?

I said,

We did-wanted FBI investigation, so we could monitor. Monitoring now, they find nothing, but should start working on Bobby angle.

He said,

Okay. Will get back in six hours.

“ARE we going to Washington?” LuEllen asked.

“Tell you in a minute. I’m gonna run a little check on this Lemon stuff.”

I went back out, looked in a couple of databases, and came up with a phone bill-a big phone bill-for Carp at the Clay Street address in Washington. “There it is,” I said.

“So…”

“Everything goes there,. Carp’s headed that way, Lemon says he has a current apartment there, and so does AT &T, and there’s this working-group thing. I think that’s where it’ll happen.” I turned and put my arm around her shoulder. “But it’s getting a little strange for a simple burglary wench,” I said.

“I’ll hang on for a while longer. Guy’s starting to piss me off.”

BACK in Longstreet, we lost John, which we’d expected. Marvel, arms crossed, said, “I’m putting my foot down. If John gets killed, I’ll have to find work to support the kids. To do that, I’ll have to go out of town and the whole Longstreet project goes down the drain. So I’m telling him, No.”

John looked abashed, the guy who didn’t want to appear to be under his wife’s thumb, but who knew she was right. I couldn’t see any reason for him to come with us. “It’s all gonna be computer stuff at this point. If we need help carrying a body, we’ll give you a ring.”

“Do that,” he said. But I think he wanted to come.

WE LEFT for Washington the next morning, driving. We were driving because that’s about the only anonymous way to travel around the U.S. Everything else will wind up in a database.

Even by car, anonymity is tough: if you pay for motels or gas with credit cards, if you speed and get a ticket, if you use your cell phone, you’re gonna be on a computer, fixed at an exact spot at an exact time. I’d noticed, once-you can see for yourself-that when you pull up to the parking-garage exit booth at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, to pay your money, they’ll give you a receipt with your license tag number printed on it. This is four seconds after you pulled up, so your tag is being automatically read somewhere along the line.