Daemon

many of them have spent serious time playing in Sobol’s games. Mr Ross has.’
    ‘I can’t vet Mr Ross’s skills – no offense – can
you
, Pete?’
    ‘Somebody technical should listen to him.’
    Suddenly the FBI robot crew leader stepped between them and called up to Decker on the patio. ‘The robot’s a no-go, Neal. There’s signal interference. This guy probably has spread spectrum radio towers or something inside.’
    Decker looked around. ‘Should we have the city cut power to the house?’
    The lead operator conferred with the other two, then looked up to Decker. ‘The computer forensics team will want to keep the power on – otherwise they might lose computer memory evidence.’
    Decker nodded vigorously. ‘Of course … I knew that.’ He spoke softly with agents Straub and Knowles. After a moment he looked up again and announced, ‘Okay, we go to plan B. The bomb squad goes in with fiber optics. Guerner, get your crew ready.’
    Three heavily padded men with high Kevlar collars, bulletproof helmets, and plastic toolboxes moved through the crowd. The officers made way for them.
    Decker motioned with both arms. ‘Let’s move it back behind the vehicles, people!’
    The crowd of officers moved back through the parkedcars and gathered on the far side. Decker followed them.
    Sebeck gave a look to Chief Eichhorn, then approached Decker. ‘Agent Decker, I’ve got important information from the canyon scene.’
    ‘Let me resolve this first, Sergeant.’ Decker tried his radio again and then conferred with the bomb squad.
    Sebeck leaned on a nearby car hood and looked to Ross. ‘If Sobol is behind the murders, we should find some evidence of it here.’
    Ross looked around. ‘Look, the FBI knows where to reach me, Sergeant. I really just want to get back to my hotel and salvage my client list.’
    ‘Not until I get you in front of Decker.’
    Agent Andrew Guerner was proud of his team. Rick Limon and Frank Chapman had served with him in the FBI Explosives Unit through four years and scores of bomb calls in the U.S. and abroad – real ones and hoaxes. Among them they had thirty-five years of experience. As a demining expert with the 101st Airborne, Guerner had extensive field experience in demolitions, booby traps, improvised explosive devices, and cell phone detonators. He’d cleared mines from Bosnia to Iraq and spent two years as an explosives instructor at Quantico. His companions had military experience with Special Forces and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. It was a top-notch crew.
    Decker’s briefing laid out the details of the two earlier killings – and that this Sobol guy was some kind of genius. Guerner clucked his tongue inside his helmet. He’d seen a lot of clever devices in his day. They were all sitting in his lab, defused.
    He turned to his partners and nodded. Limon and Chapman nodded back. Far behind them, the gathered officers gave the thumbs-up sign. Guerner started by taking the fiber optic snake out and flipping up his visor. He looked for a gap wide enough to slip it under the mansion’s front door. It was a tight seal.Looked like an authentic Spanish mission door. Too bad.
    He motioned to Limon, who leaned forward and drove a hole through it with a battery-powered drill.
    Guerner fed the snake through the hole and put his eye to the lens. He turned the snake this way and that, examining every angle of the room beyond the door.
    Christ, that’s a nice floor
.
    Probably Venetian marble. He’d just laid ceramic tile in his downstairs bathroom at home, and he had a greater appreciation of these things now. He examined the twin staircases curving down from a single landing above the foyer. There were three ground-floor doorways, not including the front door. The foyer was probably twenty feet deep and thirty feet wide. The millwork was nicely done. Right down to the baseboards.
    He moved back and gave a hand signal to Limon, who stepped forward with a frequency detector.
    Limon moved the detector along the doorjamb and the face of the door itself. He watched the LCD readout intently. ‘This thing’s going nuts.’ He pulled it away from the door and just held it there. ‘It’s still going nuts. I’m getting signals on all frequencies.’
    Interesting
. For a moment Guerner considered using an explosive sheet to blast an opening through the door, but the antique oak was reinforced with black iron bands and was probably several inches thick. Power saws would