Pietro produced his phone for a bar-count contest. "What service do you use? I have two bars."

Sebeck butted in. "You are?"

Pietro turned back to him. "This is Haime."

"What's your full name, Haime?"

"Haime Alvarez Jimenez, seor."

"Can I see some identification, Mr. Jimenez?"

"What's going on?"

"There's been a fatality. Can I have that ID, please?"

Haime looked at Pietro and Massey, then dug into his pocket for his wallet. He found his driver's license and held it out to Sebeck. Its leading edge quivered noticeably.

A slight smile creased Sebeck's face. "Haime, did you kill this guy?"

"No, sir."

"Then relax." He took the ID and examined it.

Haime pointed at the steel box. "I close a ticket on this winch today. I just turn a key. Like it says on the work order."

"Where's the work order?"

"On the Pocket PC in my truck."

"Do you have the key to this winch housing?"

Haime nodded and produced a bar-code-labeled key chain with three keys.

"You activated this winch today? What time?"

"About nine, nine-thirty. I can tell you exactly from the work order."

Sebeck motioned for the keys, then used them to unlock the housing. He flipped it open with the tip of his pen. Inside, there was an electric winch with another keyhole in its face.

"What's the third key for?"

"Manual override for the front gate."

"So you turned the key. The winch activated and pulled the cable…" Sebeck leaned over, "…out of the ground."

"No, seor. No cable. Just the winch motor."

The others rolled their eyes in unison.

"Haime, if you were sent by your company to do this, then you don't have much to worry about. What's the purpose of this winch, anyway?"

Haime shrugged. "I not run it before."

"Can you get me that work order?"

"Yes, sir." Haime scurried toward his truck.

Pietro was looking down the length of the cable. "What exactly happened, Detective Sebeck?"

"Someone built this winch and the housing, then buried a steel cable in the soil. Running the winch stretched the cable across the dirt road at neck level."

The two CyberStorm representatives looked confused.

Pietro put a hand to his chin. "Are you sure that it's not a…like a chain across the road?"

"Why bury it? Why do it at all when you have a steel gate at the entrance?"

Pietro was at a loss.

Haime returned and pushed his Pocket PC into Sebeck's face. He shadowed the screen with his callused hand and pointed to the work order displayed there. "See, it says 'Run the antenna-lifting winch until it stop.'"

Sebeck took the handheld computer and with Mantz studied the data fields on-screen. "Nathan, we're going to need a search warrant for the property management firm. Put their office under surveillance until we get a team over there. Also, get me a case number, and get me Burkow's notes. I'm taking over the investigation. Everything goes through me from this point forward." He looked up at Haime. "Haime, we're going to want to chat with you at the sheriff's station."

"Seor, I didn't do anything."

"I know, Haime. That's why you want to cooperate while we arrange a search warrant for your employer."

Pietro interposed himself. "Detective Sebeck-"

"Counselor, this cable assembly was maintained by your property management firm-which would indicate they had prior knowledge of it. Would you prefer to make CyberStorm the responsible party, or does CyberStorm want to cooperate with my investigation?"

Pietro pursed his lips, then turned to Haime. "Haime, don't worry. Go with them. Do everything they say. Tell them everything you know."

"I don't know anything, Seor Pietro."

"I know that, Haime. But I think it best that you do what Detective Sebeck says."

"I am a U.S. citizen. Am I under arrest?"

Sebeck looked to Mantz. Mantz stepped in. "No, Haime. We're just gonna talk. You can leave the pickup truck here. We'll take care of that." Mantz motioned for Haime to move toward the patrol cars and started escorting him away.

Pietro nodded to Massey. "Detective Sebeck, we'll contact your office for a copy of the police report. You know where to reach me." Both men climbed back into the Range Rover and sped off, perhaps to find a better wireless signal.

Sebeck looked along the length of cable. Would someone really have built this just to kill a person? He could think of easier ways to kill someone.

He clamped back a smile. This wasn't a murder-suicide or a botched drug deal. It might actually be a premeditated killing. Was it wrong to hope so? Accident or murder, the victim was dead. Nothing would change that. So what was wrong with hoping it was murder?

Pondering this, Sebeck turned and walked back to the front gate.

Chapter 3:// Block Box

Sebeck, Mantz, and three county deputies crowded around a Post-it-note-slathered computer monitor in the cubicle of a nondescript company, in a generic office park in Thousand Oaks. Tractor-trailers hissed by on the freeway just beyond the thin stucco walls, but the officers were intent, leaning over the shoulders of Deputy Aaron Larson, the County Sheriff's only computer fraud specialist.

Larson was in his late twenties with an air of military orderliness-buzz-cut hair, athletic build, and a square jaw. He had a boyish enthusiasm for ferreting out larceny. At such times he'd smile and shake his head in slow-motion disbelief over what people thought they could get away with.

Larson's computer screen scrolled rows of text. "This log lists IP addresses making connections to their server. Notice that we've got a number of connections at around the time our target work ticket was created."

He alt- tabbed over to a custom property management program. "I spoke with the secretary, and she said they're able to accept work tickets from clients through a secure Web page."

Sebeck nodded. "So the request didn't necessarily come from this office."

"Right." Larson flipped back to the custom application. "The Requestorfield, here, claims the ticket was submitted by this Chopra Singh person at CyberStorm Entertainment. But wait-that's not where the connection actually originated."

Larson minimized all the windows except the Web log. He highlighted a single line. "This was the connection that created the work order. When I do a Whois lookup on the IP address…" He switched screens. "Voil."

A Whois lookup page displayed the domain as owned by Alcyone Insurance Corporation of Woodland Hills, California.

Sebeck read the small type. "Then the work order originated from this company in Woodland Hills."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"You think the address was spoofed?"

"The only way to find out is to get a warrant for their Web logs."

Another deputy entered the cramped office. "Sergeant, there's a news van outside."

Sebeck waved him off and kept his gaze on Larson. "So no one in this management firm created the work order that killed Pavlos?"

"Seems unlikely."

Sebeck eyed the screen. "Is this sort of Internet work order system typical for a hole-in-the-wall company like this?"

Larson shook his head slowly and smiled. "No, it's not. This is pretty slick. The office manager said their parent company developed it for them. You'll never guess who the parent company is."

"CyberStorm Entertainment."

Larson touched his finger to his nose. "Very good, Sergeant."

Just then the radios crackled to life again. Sebeck turned to listen.

"Units in vicinity of Westlake. 10–54 at 3000 Westlake Boulevard reported. Be advised, 10-29h. 11–98 with building security."

Sebeck exchanged looks with the other officers. Another dead body had been found. "What the hell…"

The address tugged at Sebeck's memory. He pulled Gordon Pietro's business card out of his pocket. At least his memory hadn't failed him; the new body had been found at CyberStorm Entertainment.