While he listened, Hood couldn't help but think back to Ballon's comments about Hausen being a headline grabber. Having been a politician himself, Hood understood that good press was important. But he wanted to believe that this man was sincere. And in any case, there wasn't going to be press coverage in France.

A politician's Catch-22, he thought wryly. No one to report on our triumphs if we succeed, but no one to report on our arrest and humiliation if we fail, either.

As Hood was about to return to the cabin, he had an urgent summons from Stoll.

"Come here, Chief! Something's happening on the computer!"

There was no longer a frightened tremolo in the voice of Op-Center's technical genius. Matt Stoll's voice was thick, concerned. Hood made his way quickly across the soft white carpet.

"What's wrong?" Hood asked.

"Look what just hacked its way into the game I was playing."

Hood sat beside him on the right. Nancy moved from her seat on the other side of the cabin and sat on Stoll's left. Stoll pulled down the window shade so they would have a better view. They all looked at the screen.

There was a graphic of a vellum-like scroll with gothic-style printing. A white hand held it open on the top, another on the bottom.

"Citizens, hear ye!" it read. "We pray you will forgive this interruption.

"Did you know that according to the Sentencing Project, a public-interest group, one third of all black men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine are in prison, on probation, or on parole? Did you know that this figure marks a ten percent rise from just five years ago? Did you know that these blacks cost the nation over six billion dollars each year? Watch for us in eighty-three minutes."

Hood asked, "Where did this come from, Matt?"

"I have no idea."

Nancy said, "Don't break-ins usually occur through interactive terminal ports or file-transfer ports--"

"Or E-mail ports, yeah," Stoll said. "But this break-in isn't originating at Op-Center. This scroll came from somewhere else. And that somewhere else is probably very well hidden."

"What do you mean?" Hood asked.

"Sophisticated break-ins like this are usually done through a series of computers."

"So can't you just follow the trail backwards?" Hood asked.

Stoll shook his head. "You're right that these boobs use their computer to break into another, then use that one to break into another, and so on. But it's not like connect-the-dots where each stop is a single point. Each computer represents thousands of potential routes. Like a train terminal but with hundreds of tracks leading to different destinations."

The screen cleared and a second scroll appeared.