A small black window had opened in the centre of the screen. No, not entirely black. Grey shapes—moving shapes. Legs scissoring across…

'Low-res webcast,' Sam said.

'Realtime?' Agent Atta asked.

'Impossible to tell.'

They saw booted feet kicking something.

'Is that a hand?' Dean Heaney asked. 'Someone dead?'

A bright flash, as though a floor lamp had been rolled around. A glimpse of a prostrate body. Shining blood? Then…

'Fuck me,' Sam muttered.

It was over. Whatever it was Neil had broadcast, it was over.

Special Agent-in-Charge Shelley Atta turned to Thomas with baleful eyes. Your fault, her look muttered.

'Wait a sec,' Sam said. 'It's starting over. He's probably been replaying this all day.'

She was right. The window was still black, but something in the character of the gloom had changed. A pale smear near the center seemed to gain resolution. A face, like that of a drowning victim rising through black waters. Then suddenly the picture was bright—there had been some kind of cut. It was a talk-show clip, something like the old Charlie Rose, showing a handsome, middle-aged Latino man wearing a suit and seated in studio lighting. He appeared to be listening.

'Is that who I think it is?' Sam asked.

'Zarba,' Agent Atta hissed. At first Thomas thought she was naming the man, but then he remembered that zarba was Arabic for shit.

'Who is it?' Gerard asked.

Sam rolled her eyes. 'It's Peter Halasz. You know, the congressman who went missing two days ago.'

Thomas realized he'd been holding his breath. 'It's him all right,' he said. He and Nora had actually voted for him when he was running for city council years back when they had lived in Brooklyn. He heard himself say, 'What the hell you up to now, Neil?'

'Nothing good,' Atta said darkly. She raised a hand and started snapping her fingers. 'Someone? Dean…'

'Already on it,' he said, holding his palmtop. 'Sorry to bug you, Jeff, but you ain't going to believe what I'm—'

'Look,' Sam said, 'he's saying something.'

'Sound!' Agent Atta exclaimed. 'Doesn't this thing have sound?'

Thomas dropped to a crouch and rather indelicately pushed past Sam's bare knees. He'd connected his computer to an old amplifier, which he kept beneath the desk. He cranked the volume.

'… as for the implications of the so-called "Wetware Revolution"' Halasz's voice boomed from the speakers, 'I really think it's a tempest in a teapot.'

Thomas turned the volume down some. Sam greeted him with a quick, nervous smile as he pressed himself free.