“This could happen with all of them?”

“If the stealth program is in all of them, sure,” Jerome says.

“Brady set this up.” Hodges begins to pace, hand going to his side as if to contain the pain and hold it in. “Brady fucking Hartsfield.”

“How?” Holly asks.

“I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that fits. He tries to blow up the Mingo during that concert. We stop him. The audience, most of them young girls, is saved.”

“By you, Holly,” Jerome says.

“Be quiet, Jerome. Let him tell it.” Her eyes suggest she knows where Hodges is going.

“Six years pass. Those young girls, most of them in elementary or middle school in 2010, are in high school. Maybe in college. ’Round Here is long gone and the girls are young women now, they’ve moved on to other kinds of music, but then they get an offer they can’t refuse. A free game console, and all they have to do is be able to prove they were at the ’Round Here show that night. The console probably looks as out-of-date to them as a black-and-white TV, but what the hell, it’s free.”

“Yes!” Holly says. “Brady was still after them. This is his revenge, but not just on them. It’s his revenge on you, Bill.”

Which makes me responsible, Hodges thinks bleakly. Except what else could I do? What else could any of us do? He was going to bomb the place.

“Babineau, going under the name of Myron Zakim, bought eight hundred of those consoles. It had to be him, because he’s loaded. Brady was broke and I doubt Library Al could have fronted even twenty thousand dollars from his retirement savings. Those consoles are out there now. And if they all get this amped-up program once they’re turned on . . .”

“Hold it, go back,” Jerome says. “Are you really saying that a respected neurosurgeon got involved in this shit?”

“That’s what I’m saying, yeah. Your sister ID’d him, and we already know the respected neurosurgeon was using Brady Hartsfield as a lab rat.”

“But now Hartsfield’s dead,” Holly says. “Which leaves Babineau, who may also be dead.”

“Or not,” Hodges says. “There was blood in his car, but no body. Wouldn’t be the first time some doer tried to fake his own death.”

“I’ve got to check something on my computer,” Holly says. “If those free Zappits are getting a new program as of today, then maybe . . .” She hurries out.

Jerome begins, “I don’t understand how any of this can be, but—”

“Babineau will be able to tell us,” Hodges says. “If he’s still alive.”

“Yes, but wait a minute. Barb talked about hearing a voice, telling her all sorts of awful things. I didn’t hear any voice, and I sure don’t feel like offing myself.”

“Maybe you’re immune.”

“I’m not. That screen got me, Bill, I mean I was gone. I heard words in the little tune, and I think there were words in the blue flashes, too. Like subliminal messages. But . . . no voice.”