“That’s highly unorthodox,” she said with a sniff.

I couldn’t disagree, so I simply nodded and attempted a smile, knowing full well that between the state of my lip and the boiled crimson of my skin, this was the visual equivalent of poking her in the eye.

She flinched again. “Igor’s running a few minutes late-he had to take another meeting unexpectedly-but why don’t you all wait in the conference room?” she suggested, making no effort to hide her eagerness to have me out of her line of sight. “You know how to get there, don’t you?”

We assured her we did and headed for the glass-walled room where we’d spoken to Iggie the previous day, glad to have the chance to get everything set up beforehand. Peter fiddled around with the equipment we’d brought, and in a few minutes he’d hooked up a Webcam to face us down the length of the conference table. Behind the Webcam, he projected the display from his laptop, complete with a live Internet connection, onto the large white screen that hung on the far wall. “We’re all set,” he said.

“Now we just need them to show up,” said Hilary.

“I wonder what Iggie’s ‘unexpected meeting’ was,” mused Luisa, her tone dry.

“I think we could all hazard a pretty good guess,” I said.

And a few minutes later we knew for sure. Through the glass and across the floor, Iggie appeared around a far corner, and he was accompanied by Alex Cutler. They had their heads close together, talking as they walked, and even from the distance it was evident neither was terribly happy. If everything went as planned, they would soon be even less happy.

“Do you think Alex told Iggie everything?” asked Abigail.

“Just because his little kidnapping plot backfired doesn’t mean he’s going to give up on keeping the whole mess from getting out,” said Hilary. “He might have been trying to limit Iggie’s role before, but now he needs all the help he can get, and Iggie’s got a lot at stake here, too.”

As we watched, the two men paused and turned as if they’d heard their names being called, and Iggie waved at someone. Caro was making her way through the maze of cubicles to join them, dressed in a neat navy pantsuit. With her attaché case and her blond hair pulled back into a chignon, she looked every bit as much the public-relations expert as she had the tennis star the day before. Accomplice or not, I’d had a feeling Iggie and Alex would call on her-they would need her to spin any bad news that might leak. Of course, they had no way of knowing that they were facing a deluge, not a leak.

The three of them huddled together out on the floor, and their discussion appeared heated.

“We need to get things moving,” I said, glancing at my watch. Our timeline had only limited flexibility.

“Leave it to me,” said Hilary. She pushed open the door of the conference room and gave a yell. This got the attention of everyone in a ten-mile radius, but she crooked her finger in the direction of our targeted threesome. “Come join us!” she called, a broad smile on her face. “There’s something in here you’re going to want to see.”

Alex’s face went pale beneath its tan, and Iggie looked like he might throw up. They might have already discovered Hilary had escaped from Caro’s boat, but that didn’t mean they’d expected her to show up here. Caro, however, answered Hilary’s broad smile with one of her own.

“Hi, there!” she called brightly. She headed our way, with Iggie and Alex following reluctantly in her wake.

“What a nice surprise,” Caro said, still smiling as she entered the conference room. “What brings you all here?”

“Iggie and I had scheduled a meeting to talk about Igobe’s public offering,” I said, which was the truth, if not the whole truth.

“Great!” she said. “You know, I have a few shares myself, and I’ve been looking forward to cashing in. There are a couple of local charities that could really use more financial support, and I’d love to send some extra funds their way.”

She really had the whole sweetness-and-light act down to a science, I thought, incredulous.

Hilary, meanwhile, ushered first Iggie and then Alex into the room. “Whoops,” she said, as Alex let out a yelp of pain. “How clumsy of me. I didn’t mean to step on your foot. By the way, have you met my friend, Ben? Ben’s an FBI agent. And he has a gun. Will you show them, Ben?”

Ben obligingly pulled open his jacket and displayed his weapon, cased in its shoulder holster, as Hilary closed the door and flipped the switch to make the glass walls opaque.

“Hey, Rachel,” said Iggie, apparently too stressed to use anything but my real name. “Could we postpone our meeting? Some stuff has-uh-come up, and I really need to spend some time with Alex and Caro.”

“This will only take a minute,” I assured him. “And Alex and Caro are welcome to join in. In fact, we’d prefer that they did.”

With Hilary and Ben blocking the way out, they had little choice but to sit down.

“Ready?” Peter asked, poised before his laptop.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Here goes,” he said, and he pressed a few buttons. On the screen, the Web browser loaded a new page in which a square of video played. It displayed an empty seat in a room filled with technical equipment: computers, servers, scanners and cables. In one corner of the room, a Great Dane could be seen, dozing on a cushioned dogbed of plaid flannel.

“What is this?” asked Iggie. “Rachel, are you sure we need to do this now?”

“Shh,” I said, as a man walked into the frame and took a seat on the chair. He leaned over, typed something into the keyboard on a table next to him, and then he leaned back and looked up directly into the lens of the Webcam on his end.

“Hello,” he said.

Iggie gasped. “Leo?”

“That’s right,” said Leo.

“But-how?” asked Alex.

“It turns out I’m not dead. I know, man, it’s a real shocker. But we can catch up on old times later. Right now there’s something I want you to watch.”

We could see his hands moving in toward the camera, and then the images on the screen blurred as he rotated the camera to face his own computer screen. “This is all live, by the way. Just in case you were wondering,” Leo said over the tapping of his fingertips on a keyboard. “Now, I’m pulling up a Web site I set up myself. It’s called www.leolovesyou.org. Catchy, don’t you think?”

“What is this?” asked Alex, his surprise giving way to impatience.

“You’ll see,” said Leo. The image on the screen in front of us blurred again as he adjusted his camera, and then it settled into focus, revealing a snapshot of Scat alongside a short message:

Welcome to LeoLovesYou.

The security software available from this site is free to all users, but contributions are welcome and will be used to support a range of worthy causes, from eliminating poverty to eradicating disease.

This software is superior to anything on the market today, including Igobe’s. In fact, it was created by the same developer who developed their software. But it’s better. And unlike Igobe, it’s absolutely free.

So download it and contribute what you can. And spread the word.

Peace out and power to the people.