“I’ll tell the guy, but for now assume they’re watching every move, listening to every phone, and reading every e-mail and text message.”

Bruce feigned disbelief and frustration, but in reality for the past two months he’d been living with the assumption that someone, possibly the FBI or perhaps someone else, was watching and listening.

The following day, Wednesday, Mike Wood called Lamar Bradshaw’s cell phone four times and was sent straight to voice mail. He left messages, none of them returned. On Thursday, Bradshaw called back and confirmed that Mr. Cable was a person of interest, but no longer a target of their investigation.

Mike informed Bradshaw that his client would soon be leaving the country, and passed along his flight number and the hotel in Nice where he would be staying for a few days with his wife. Bradshaw thanked him for the information and said the FBI had no interest in Cable’s foreign travels.

4.

On Friday, Denny Durban and Bryan Bayer, also known as Joe Rooker, were flown to Philadelphia, then driven to Trenton, where they were again processed and placed in separate cells. Denny was then taken to an interrogation room, sat at a table, given a cup of coffee, and told to wait. Mark Driscoll and his lawyer, Gil Petrocelli, were led by Special Agent McGregor to the hallway outside the interrogation room, and through a one-way window they took a look at Denny, sitting all alone and looking bored.

“We nabbed your buddy,” McGregor said to Mark. “Caught him in Florida.”

“So?” Petrocelli said.

“So we now have all three of you, the three who were inside the Firestone Library. Seen enough?”

Driscoll said, “Yes.”

They walked away and entered another interrogation room two doors down. When they were seated around a small table, McGregor said, “We don’t know who else was involved but there were others. Someone outside the library created the diversion while the three of you were inside. Someone else hacked the campus security system and electrical grid. That’s five, could be more, only you can tell us. We’re closing in on the manuscripts and we’ll soon have a fresh batch of indictments. We are willing to offer the mother of all deals, Mr. Driscoll. You sing and you walk. Tell us everything and your indictment is forgotten. You enter witness protection and we’ll set you up in some nice place with new papers, a good job, whatever you want. If there’s a trial, you’ll have to come back and testify, but frankly I doubt that’ll happen.”

For Mark, eight months in jail were enough. Denny was the dangerous one, and now that he was neutralized, so much of the pressure was off. The threat of retaliation was greatly diminished. Trey was not the violent type and lived on the run anyway. If Mark gave up Trey’s real name he might soon be caught. Ahmed was a wimpish computer nerd who was afraid of his shadow. The thought of him exacting revenge seemed quite remote.