Part 3 (2/2)

I KNEW I WOULDN'T be able to sleep that night. I didn't want to go home.So I stayed at the crime scene until the lab teams had come and gone; then for about an hour I crisscrossed the deserted streets of the port searching for anyone, a night worker, a vagrant, who might've seen who dumped Jill off. I drove around, afraid to go to the office, afraid to go home, reliving the awful sight over and over again, tears streaming down my face. Turning over that tarp - seeing Jill!I drove until my car seemed to know the place I was headed. Where else did I have to go? Three o'clock in the morning. I found myself at the morgue.I knew Claire would be there. No matter what time it was. Doing her job because it was the one thing that could hold her together. In her blue scrubs, in the operating room.Jill was laid out on the gurney. Under those same harsh lights where I'd seen so many victims before.Jill...My sweet darling girl.I stared through the gla.s.s, tears wending down my cheeks. I was thinking I'd failed her in some way.Finally I pushed through the gla.s.s doors. Claire was in the middle of the autopsy. She was doing what I was doing. Her job.”You don't want to be in here, Lindsay,” she said when she saw me. She drew a sheet over Jill's exposed wound.”Yeah, I do, Claire.” I just stood there. I wasn't going to leave. I needed to see this.Claire stared at my swollen, tear-stained face. She nodded, the tiny outline of a smile. ”At least make yourself useful and hand me that probe on the tray over there.”I handed Claire her instrument and traced the back of my hand against Jill's cold, hard cheek. How could this not be some dream?”Widespread damage to the right occipital lobe,” Claire spoke into the microphone on her lapel, ”consistent with a single, rear-entry gunshot trauma. No exit wound; the bullet is still lodged in the left lateral ventricle. Minimal blood loss to the affected area. Strange...,” she muttered.I was barely listening. My eyes still fixed on Jill.”Light powder burns around the hair and neck indicate a small-caliber weapon fired at close range,” Claire continued.She s.h.i.+fted the body. The opened rear of Jill's skull appeared on the monitor.I couldn't watch that. I looked away.”I'm now removing what looks like a small-caliber bullet fragment from the left ventricle,” Claire went on. ”Signs of severe rupture, symptomatic of this type of trauma, but... very little swelling...” I watched Claire as she probed around and removed a flattened bullet. She dropped it into a dish.A jolt of rage tensed me. It looked like a flattened.22. Caked with specks of Jill's blood.”Something doesn't fit,” Claire said, puzzled. She looked up at me. ”This area ought to be covered in spinal fluid. No swelling of the brain tissue, very little blood.”Suddenly Claire the professional clicked in. ”I'm going to open up the chest cavity,” she spoke into the mike. ”Lindsay, look away.””What's wrong, Claire? What's going on?””Something's not right.” Claire rolled the body over, took out a scalpel. Then she slipped the blade down a straight line from the top of Jill's chest.I did avert my eyes. I didn't want to see Jill like that.”I'm doing a standard sternotomy,” Claire dictated into the mike. ”Opening up the pneumo chest area. Lung mem-brane is soft, tissue... degraded, soupy... I'm exposing the pericardium now....” I heard Claire take a deep breath. ”s.h.i.+t.”My heart started racing. I was fixed on the screen now. ”Claire, what's going on? What do you see?””Stay there.” She put up a hand. She had seen something horrible. What was it?”Oh, Lindsay,” she whispered, and finally looked at me. ”Jill didn't die from a gunshot.””What!””The lack of swelling, blood seepage.” She shook herhead. ”The gunshot was delivered after she was dead.” ”What are you saying, Claire?” ”I'm not sure” - she looked up - ”but if I had toguess... I'd say ricin.”

Chapter 70.

THERE WAS ALWAYS something intimidating about meeting Charles Danko in person. Even at a fancy place like the Hunt-ington Hotel in San Francisco. Danko fit in anywhere. He was wearing a tweed jacket, pinstriped s.h.i.+rt, and a rep tie.There was a girl with him, pretty, with a tangle of bright red hair. He always liked to keep you off guard. Who is she?Mal had been told to wear a suit jacket and even a tie, if he could dig one up. He had, and he found it kind of funny - bright red with tiny bugles in the design.Danko stood rather formally and shook Mal's hand, just another of his odd off-putting gestures. He waved a hand around the dining room. ”Could there be a safer place for us to meet? My Gawd, the Huntington!”He looked at the girl and they both laughed, but he didn't introduce her.”Ricin,” Malcolm said, ”it's brilliant. What a great day - we got Bengosian! We can do so much damage here. h.e.l.l, we could wipe out this capitalist den in about a minute flat. Go over to the Mark and take out another hundred rich blood-suckers. Take the trolley and spring death on anybody we pa.s.sed.””Yes, especially because I figured how to make it as a concentrate.”Malcolm nodded, but he looked nervous. ”I thought this was about G-8?”Danko looked at the girl again. They shared condescend-ing smiles. Who the h.e.l.l is she? What does she know?”Your focus is too narrow, Mal. We've talked about that before. More than anything else, this is about terrifying people. And we're going to scare them, believe me. Ricin will do the trick. Makes anthrax look like something only farm animals should fret about.”He stared hard at Malcolm now. ”You have a delivery sys-tem for me? For the ricin?”Malcolm had stopped making eye contact. ”Yeah.””And more of your explosives?””We could blow the Huntington right off the map. The Mark, too.” Malcolm finally allowed himself a sheepish smile. ”All right, who is she?”Danko threw back his head and laughed. ”She's someone brilliant, just like you. She's a secret weapon. Let's leave it at that. Just another soldier,” he said, then looked into the girl's eyes. ”There's always another soldier, Malcolm. That's what should be scaring the h.e.l.l out of everybody right now.”

Chapter 71.

MICh.e.l.lE HEARD VOICES in the other room. Mal was back from his meeting. Julia was whooping it up as if she'd won the lottery. But Mich.e.l.le felt awful.She knew they had done terrible things. The latest killing didn't sit well with her. That pretty, innocent D.A. She had put aside the image of Charlotte Lightower and the house-keeper who'd been killed in the blast, and found some relief that at least the children had been saved. Lightower, Ben-gosian - they were greedy, guilty sc.u.m.But this one. What had she done to be on the list? Because she worked for the state? What had Mal said? This one is just for the thrill of it, just to show we can. Except Mich.e.l.le didn't really believe that. There was always a hidden agenda with Mal.The poor D.A. knew she was going to die from the minute they forced her into the truck. But she never gave in. Not once. She seemed brave to Mich.e.l.le. The real crime was that she never even knew why she was dying! They wouldn't even give her that.The door creaked open and Mal eased into the room. The look of triumph on his face gave Mich.e.l.le the creeps. He lay down next to her, smelling of tobacco and alcohol. ”What happened to my party girl?””Not tonight,” Mich.e.l.le said. A wheeze kicked up in her chest.”Not tonight?” Mal grinned.Mich.e.l.le sat up. ”I just don't understand. Why her? What did she do to anybody?””I mean, what did any of them really do?” Mal stroked her hair. ”Wrong employer, honeybun. She represented the big bad state that's sanctioning the criminal pillaging of the world. That's what she did, Mich.e.l.le. She's tanks in Iraq. She's Grumman and Dow Chemical and the WTO all rolled into one. Don't be fooled because she was pretty.””They said on the news that she put away murderers. She even prosecuted some of these CEOs in business scandals.””And I told you not to pay attention to the news, Mich.e.l.le. Sometimes people who do good things die. Hold that thought.”She shot a horrified look at him. The cough in her chest grew tighter. She fumbled around the bed for her new inhaler, but Mal blocked her hand. ”What did you think, Mich.e.l.le? We were in this just to knock off a couple of fat-cat billionaires? Our fight's with the state. The state is very pow-erful. It won't roll over and die.”Mich.e.l.le forced a breath. She realized in that moment that she was different from Mal. From them all. He called her a little girl. But he was wrong. A little girl didn't do the terrible things she had done. She wheezed again. ”I need my inhaler, Mal. Please.””And I need to know if I can trust you, honeybun.” He picked up the inhaler and twirled it in his fingers like a toy.Her breathing was starting to get heavy now, ragged. And Mal was making it worse, scaring her like this. She didn't know what he was capable of. ”You can trust me, Mal. You know that,” she whispered.”I do know that, Mich.e.l.le, but it's not me I'm worried about. I mean, we work for someone, don't we, hon? Charles Danko isn't forgiving, the way I am. Danko is tough enough to beat them at their own game. He's a genius.”She grabbed the puffer out of Mal's hand and depressed it twice, shooting the soothing spray into her lungs.”You know the cool thing about ricin?” Mal smiled. ”It can get into your bloodstream a hundred ways.” He depressed his index finger twice, as though he was triggering an imaginary inhaler. He smiled. ”Chht, chht.”He had a glint in his eye she hadn't seen before. ”Whoa, now that would really get that chest of yours into a state, wouldn't it, hon? Chht, chht.”

Chapter 72.

IT WAS BEDLAM at the Hall that morning. As scary as it had ever been since I entered police work.An A.D.A. being killed. August Spies' victim number three.By six A.M., the place was teeming with a hundred Feds: FBI, Department of Justice, ATF. And reporters, crammed into the fifth-floor news room for some kind of briefing. The front page of the Examiner had a big banner headline: WHO'S NEXT?I was going over one of the crime scene reports from Jill's killing when I was surprised by Joe Santos and Phil Martelli knocking at my door. ”We're real sorry to hear about Ms. Bernhardt,” Santos said, stepping in.I tossed aside the papers and nodded thanks. ”It was nice of you to come here.”Martelli shrugged. ”Actually, that's not why we're here, Lindsay.””We decided to go back through our records on this Hard-away thing,” Santos said, sitting down. He pulled out a manila envelope. ”We figured if he was here, given what he was up to, he had to turn up somewhere else.”Santos removed a series of black-and-white photos from the envelope. ”This is a rally we were keeping track of. Octo-ber twenty-second. Six months ago.”The photos were surveillance sweeps of the crowd, no one in particular. Then one face was circled. Sandy hair, a narrow chin, a thin beard. Huddled in a dark fatigue jacket, jeans, a scarf that hung to his knees.My blood started to race. I went up to my board and com-pared it with the FBI photos taken in Seattle five years before.Stephen Hardaway.The son of a b.i.t.c.h was here six months ago.”This is where it starts to get interesting.” Phil Martelli winked.He spread out a couple of other shots. A different rally. Hardaway again. This time, standing next to someone I rec-ognized.Roger Lemouz.Hardaway had an arm around him.

Chapter 73.

HALF AN HOUR LATER I pulled up on Durant Avenue at the south entrance to the university. I ran inside Dwinelle Hall, where Lemouz had his office.The professor was there, outfitted in a tweed jacket and white linen s.h.i.+rt, entertaining a coed with flowing red hair.”Party's over,” I said.”Ah, Madam Lieutenant.” He smiled. That condescend-ing accent, Etonian or Oxfordian or whatever the h.e.l.l it was. ”I was just counseling Annette here on how Foucault says that the same forces which historically depress cla.s.s affect gender, too.””Well, cla.s.s is over, Red.” I flashed the student an ”I don't want to see you in here in about ten seconds” look. It took her about that long to gather her books and leave. To her credit, Red flashed me a middle finger at the door. I returned the favor.”I'm delighted to see you again.” Lemouz seemed not to mind and pushed back in his chair. ”Given the sad affairs on the news this morning, I fear the subject is politics - not women's development.””I think I misjudged you, Lemouz.” I remained standing. ”I thought you were just some pompous two-bit agitator, and you turn out to be a real player.”Lemouz crossed his legs and gave me a condescending smile. ”I'm not sure I understand what you mean.”I took out the envelope with Santos's photos.”What I'm really getting a kick out of, Lemouz, is that I'm what's keeping your a.s.s away from Homeland Security. I pa.s.s along your name, with your public statements, the next time I see you, it'll be in a cell.”Lemouz leaned back in his chair, still with an amused smile. ”And you're warning me, why, Lieutenant?””Who said I am warning you?”His expression changed. He had no idea what I had on him. I liked that.”What I find amusing” - Lemouz shook his head - ”is how your blessed Const.i.tution is so blind to people in this country who are wearing a chador or who have the wrong accent, yet so high and mighty about the threat to a free soci-ety when it comes to a couple of greedy MBAs and a pretty D.A.”I pretended I hadn't even heard what he just said.”There's something I want you to look at, Lemouz.”I opened the envelope and spread the FBI photos of Stephen Hardaway across the desk.Lemouz shrugged. ”I don't know. Perhaps I've seen him.... I don't know where. Is he a student here?””You weren't listening, Lemouz.” I dropped another photo in front of him. A second. And a third. The ones taken by Santos and Martelli. Showing Hardaway standing with him, one with his arm draped across the professor's shoulder. ”How do I find him, Lemouz? How?”He shook his head. ”I don't know. These photos are from some time ago. I believe he was a professor detained after nine-eleven. Last fall. He hung around a couple of our rallies. I haven't seen him since. I don't actually know the man.””That's not good enough,” I pressed.”I don't know. That's the truth, Lieutenant. He was from up north somewhere, as I remember. Eugene? Seattle? He hung around for a while, but it all seemed to bore him.”For once, I believed Lemouz. ”What name was he going under?””Not Hardaway. Malcolm something. Malcolm Dennis, I think. I don't know where he is now. No idea.”There was part of me that liked seeing Lemouz's slick, superior veneer crack. ”I want to know one more thing. And this stays between us. Okay?”Lemouz nodded. ”Of course.””The name August Spies. You know it?”Lemouz blinked. The color came back to his face. ”That's what they're calling themselves?”I sat down and pushed myself close to him. We had never let the name out before. And he knew. I could see it on his face.”Tell me, Lemouz. Who are the August Spies?”

Chapter 74.

”HAVE YOU EVER HEARD of the Haymarket Ma.s.sacre?” heasked me, talking as if I were one of his students.”You mean in Chicago?” I said.”Very good, Lieutenant.” Lemouz nodded. ”To this day, there is a statue there. To mark it. On May first, 1886, there was a ma.s.sive labor demonstration up Michigan Avenue. The greatest gathering of labor to that point in the history of the United States. Eighty thousand workers, women and children too. To this day, May Day is celebrated as labor's official holi-day around the globe. Everywhere, of course,” he said with a smirk, ”but in the United States.””Cut to the chase. I don't need the politics.””The demonstration was peaceful,” Lemouz went on, ”and over the next couple of days, more and more workers went out on strike and rallied. Then, on the third day, the police fired into the crowd. Two protestors were killed. The next day another demonstration was organized. At Haymar-ket Square. Randolph and Des Plaines Streets.”Angry speeches blasted the government. The mayor ordered the police to disperse the crowd. One hundred seventy-six Chicago cops entered the square in a phalanx and stormed the crowd, wielding their nightsticks. Then the police opened fire. When the dust settled, seven police and four demonstrators lay dead.”The police needed scapegoats, so they rounded up eight labor leaders, some of whom were not even there that day.””Where is this heading?””One of them was a teacher named August Spies. They tried and hanged them all. By the neck. Until dead. Later on, Spies was shown not to have even been at Haymarket. He said, as he stood on the scaffold, 'If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement, then hang us. The ground is on fire where you stand. Let the voice of the people be heard.'”Lemouz stared deeply into my eyes. ”A moment barely recorded in the history of your country, Lieutenant, but one that would inspire. One that apparently has.”

Chapter 75.

PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE here soon. Quite a lot of people, actually.Charles Danko sat pretending to read the Examiner underneath the giant fountain in the sparkling gla.s.s atrium of the Rincon Center just off Market Street, downtown near the Bay Bridge. From above him, an eighty-five-foot plume of water splashed breathtakingly into a shallow pool.Americans like to feel awe, he thought to himself - they liked it in their movies, their pop art, and even their shop-ping centers. So I'll make them feel awe. I'll make them feel in awe of death.It would be busy here today, Danko knew. The Rincon Center's restaurants were getting ready for the surge of the lunch crowd. A thousand or more escapees from law firms and real estate trusts and financial advisers around the Financial District.Too bad this can't stretch out a little longer, Charles Danko thought, and sighed, the regret of someone who has waited such a long time for the moment. The Rincon Center had proved to be one of his favorite places in San Francisco.Danko didn't acknowledge the well-dressed black man who picked out a place beside him facing the fountain. He knew the man was a veteran of the Gulf War. Despon-dent ever since. Dependable, though perhaps a little high-strung.”Mal said I could call you 'Professor.' ” The black spoke out of the side of his mouth.”And you are Robert?” Danko asked.The man nodded. ”Robert I am.”A woman started to play on a grand piano in the center of the atrium. Every day at ten to twelve. A melody from Phantom of the Opera began to fill the gigantic s.p.a.ce.”You know who to look for?” Danko asked.”I know,” the man said, a.s.sured. ”I'll do my job. You don't have to worry about me. I'm a very good soldier.””It must be the right man,” Danko said. ”You'll see him come into the square at about twenty after twelve. He'll cross it, maybe drop some change off for the pianist. Then he'll go into Yank Sing.””You seem awfully sure he'll be here.”Danko finally looked at the man and smiled. ”You see that plume of water, Robert? It falls from a height of precisely eighty-five point five feet. I know this because having sat in this spot for a very long time, I have calculated the exact angle of an imaginary line stretching from the center of the pool, and the corresponding right angle created at its base. From there, it was easy to extrapolate its height. You know how many days I've sat and watched this fountain, Robert? Don't you worry, he'll be there.”Charles Danko stood up. He left behind the briefcase. ”I thank you, Robert. You are doing something very brave. Something that only a small few will ever commend you for. Good luck, my friend. You're a hero today.” And you're serving my purpose as well.

Chapter 76.

ON A DANK, DRIZZLY AFTERNOON in Highland Park, Texas, we said good-bye to Jill. I had said good-bye to people I loved before. But I had never felt so empty or numb. And never so cheated.The temple was a modern brick-and-gla.s.s structure with a steep-angled sanctuary filled with light. The rabbi was a woman, and Jill would've liked that. Everyone flew down. Chief Tracchio, D.A. Sinclair. Some a.s.sociates from the office. Claire, Cindy, and me. A group of girls from high school and college Jill had kept in touch with over the years. Steve was there, of course, though I couldn't bear to speak to him.We took our seats, and an aria from Turandot, Jill's favorite, was sung by a local choir.Bennett Sinclair said a few words. He praised Jill as the most dedicated prosecutor on his staff. ”People said she was tough. And she was tough. But not so tough that respect and humanity were ever casualties in how she conducted herself. Most of us have lost a good friend” - he pressed his lips - ”but the city of San Francisco is going to miss one h.e.l.l of a lawyer.”A cla.s.smate from Stanford showed a picture of Jill on the women's soccer team that went to the national finals, and made the crowd laugh when she said it didn't take long to know who really had it together, as Jill was the only one on the team who joked that ”doubling up” meant carrying two majors.I got up and spoke briefly. ”Everyone knew Jill Meyer Bernhardt as this self-a.s.sured, achieving winner. Top of her law school cla.s.s. Strongest conviction rate on the D.A.'s staff. Free-climbed the Sultan's Spire in Moab,” I said. ”I knew her for all those things, too, but mostly as a friend whose deepest inner wish wasn't about convictions or big cases but simply to bring a child into this world. That was the Jill I loved best, the real Jill.”Claire played the cello. She slowly climbed the platform and sat there for a while, then the choir joined in the back-ground in a hauntingly beautiful version of ”Loving Arms,” one of Jill's favorite songs. How many times we used to sing that song, meeting after work at Susie's, straining in margarita-drenched harmony. I watched Claire close her eyes, and the tremors of the cello and the softly singing voices in the back-ground were the perfect tribute to Jill.As the final verse began, the pallbearers picked up the casket, and Jill's family reluctantly rose to follow.And as they did, a few of us began to clap our hands. Slowly at first, as the procession walked by. Then one by one, everyone joined in.As the casket neared the rear doors, the pallbearers stopped and held it for a few seconds, as if to make sure Jill could hear her tribute.I was looking at Claire. Tears were streaming down my face so hard, I thought they would never stop. I wanted to shout out, Go, Jill.... Claire squeezed my hand. Then Cindy squeezed the other.And I thought to myself, I'll find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Jill. You sleep easy.

Chapter 77.

IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT by the time Cindy got home. Her eyes were raw, her body numb, and she wondered if she would ever recover from losing Jill.She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. The answering machine was blinking. She'd been out of touch all day. She ought to check her e-mail, maybe just to get Jill off her mind.She went to her computer and checked out the Chronicle's front page. The story of the day was ricin. Jill's COD had got-ten out. Her death, coupled with Bengosian's, had put the city in a panic. How easily could ricin be obtained? What were the symptoms? What if it got into the water supply? Were there antidotes? How many people could die in San Francisco?She was about to check her e-mail when an Instant Mes-sage bubbled through. Hotwax1199.Don't waste your time trying to trace this,the message began. Cindy froze.No need to even write it down. It belongs to a sixth-grader in Dublin, Ohio. He doesn't even know it's gone. His name is Marion Delgado, the message continued. Do you know who I am?Yes, Cindy wrote back. I know who you are. You're the son of a b.i.t.c.h who killed my friend Jill. Why are you contacting me?There's going to be another strike, the answer appeared.Tomorrow. Not like before. A lot of innocent people are going to die. Completely innocent people.Where? Cindy typed. She waited anxiously. Can you tell me where? Please!This G-8 meeting has to be canceled, the mes-sage returned.You said you wanted to help, so help, G.o.d-d.a.m.nit! These people, the government, they have to own up to their crimes. Murdering innocent people, just for oil. Multinationals on the loose, preying on the poor across the world. You said you wanted to get our message across. Here's your chance. Make these thieves and mur-derers stop their crimes now.There was a silence. Cindy wasn't sure if the messenger was still there. She didn't know what to do next.More words appeared on her screen.Get them to acknowledge their crimes. It's the only way to stop these deaths.This was something else, Cindy was thinking. The writer was reaching out. Maybe a sliver of guilt, or reason, holding back the insanity.I can tell you want to stop this insanity,Cindy wrote.Please, tell me what's going to happen. No one has to get hurt!Nothing. No further reply came.”s.h.i.+t!” Cindy pounded the keyboard. They were using her, that's all. To get their message out.She typed:Why did Jill Bernhardt have to die? What crime did she commit? Stealing oil? Globaliza-tion? What did she do?A full thirty seconds elapsed. Then a minute. Cindy was sure she had lost the messenger. She shouldn't have gotten mad. This was bigger than her anger or her grief.She finally rested her head against the monitor. When she looked up, she couldn't believe it. More words had appeared.Jill Bernhardt didn't have anything to do with G-8. This one wasn't like the others. This one was personal, the message read.

Chapter 78.

SOMETHING TERRIBLE was going to happen today. Cindy's latest e-mail a.s.sured us of that. And her strange pen pal hadn't been wrong yet, hadn't misled her or lied.It was a sickening, helpless feeling to watch the dawn creep into the sky and know: in spite of all the resources of the U.S. government, all the fancy vigilance and warnings and cops we could put out on the street, all my years of solv-ing homicides... August Spies were going to strike today. We couldn't do a thing to stop the killers.That dawn found me in the city's Emergency Command Center, one of those ”undisclosed locations” hidden in a nondescript cinder-block building in a remote section of the naval yard out in Hunter's Point. It was a large room filled with monitors and high-tech communications equipment. Everyone there was on edge. What were August Spies going to pull now?Joe Molinari was there. The mayor, Tracchio, the heads of the fire department and Emergency Medical Task Force, all of us crammed around the ”war table.”Claire was there, too. The latest warning had everyone freaked out that this new attack could be a widespread one involving ricin. Molinari had a toxins expert on alert.During the night we had decided to release Hardaway's name and description to the press. So far we hadn't been able to locate him, and the situation had only gotten exponen-tially worse. Murder had given way to public safety. We were certain that Hardaway was involved somehow and that he was extremely dangerous.The morning news shows came on. Hardaway's face was the lead story on all three networks. It was like some nerve-racking doomsday countdown straight out of a disaster movie, only much worse. The thought that any minute in our city a bomb could go off or a poison be spread, maybe even by plane.By seven, a few of the inevitable Hardaway sightings had started to trickle in. A clerk was sure he'd seen him in Oak-land at an all-night market two weeks ago. Other calls came from Spokane, Albuquerque, even New Hamps.h.i.+re. Who knew if any of them were for real? But all the calls had to be checked out.Molinari was on the phone with someone named Ronald Kull, from the WTO.”I think we should issue some kind of communiqu,” the deputy director pressed. ”No admissions, but say that the organization is considering the grievances, if they show a cessation of violence. It'll buy us time. It could save lives. Maybe a lot of lives.”He seemed to have gotten some agreement and said he would draft the language. But then it had to be approved, by Was.h.i.+ngton and by the WTO.All this red tape. The clock ticking. Some kind of disaster about to strike at any moment.Then, like the e-mail foretold, it happened.At 8:42 A.M. I don't think I'll ever forget the time of day.

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