ROD CALLIGAN HAD not expected so many reporters to show up; he would have thought by now, after a day had passed, that the explosion was old news. He managed to send the last of the reporters packing, turned away to his car, and straightened his tie, just in case there was a camera still operating somewhere around. This was a hell of a way to spend a hot afternoon, standing out in the direct sunlight, courting a sunstroke. One of the advantages of being the boss was setting your own hours, and he liked to take his afternoons off. It was well past the time he’d usually have been home, and he was damned tired of nosy reporters demanding answers to questions they had no right to ask. What did his wife have to do with this, anyway? He was angry, but he hoped he had not showed anything other than contempt for the “reporter” in question. This had not been in the plan, and he had not been prepared to face all those inquisitors.

Still, he thought he’d handled it all pretty well. He’d managed to field their questions cautiously and carefully, and he thought he might have succeeded in planting the idea that the explosion had been the fault of terrorists. He hadn’t actually come out and said that terrorists did it, but he’d talked about the vandalism and sabotage at laboratories that used animals, and the spiking of trees in logging areas. He’d even managed to work in the supposed trouble with Indians in almost the same sentence, so without actually coming out and accusing anyone, he figured plenty of people would put two and two together for themselves. With luck, one or two of them would be reporters; there was a right-wing regional rag that would probably report things that way. There were plenty of people around here who thought Indians were trash; they’d be only too happy to believe anything bad about them. The neo-Nazis and skinheads would probably start rumors for him.

The jerk at Romulus had sure been a pain, though. His regular man had been away from his desk when he’d called in the bombing, and that Sleighbow was a suspicious bastard. He had as many questions as the reporters. “Why didn’t you say anything about these threats before?” “And when, exactly, did you start getting phone calls?” “Did you save the letters?” “Why didn’t you report this to the police?”

He thought he’d gotten through that all right, but he’d better make sure. Before he headed home, maybe he’d better check up on the state of things at Romulus. It didn’t do to have loose cannon rolling around on the deck. He got into his car, started it and the A/C, and dialed the contact number on his cellular phone, savoring the cool sterility of the air-conditioned breeze coming from the vents.