The Blue Nowhere

back! Stay away from the windows!”
    Bishop continued. “Shawn’s issued Level 4 rules of engagement—that means that the SWAT teams don’t make any surrender demands. They go in assuming they’ll be met with suicidal resistance. They’re the rules of engagement they use when they’re up against terrorists willing to die.”
    “So they’ll shoot tear gas inside,” Gillette muttered, “kick the doors in and anybody who moves is going to get killed.”
    Bishop paused. “It could go like that.”
    “Wyatt?” Elana asked. “What’s going on? Tell me!”
    He turned, shouted, “Tell everybody to get down on the living room floor! You too! Now!”
    Her black eyes burned with anger and fear. “What’ve you done?”
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . . . Just do it now. Get down!”
    He turned back, looked out the window. He could see two large black vans easing through an alley fifty feet away. In the distance a helicopter fluttered a hundred feet in the air.
    “Listen, Wyatt, the bureau won’t go ahead with the assault if there’s no final confirmation. That’s part of the rules of engagement. Is there any way to shut down Shawn’s machine?”
    “Put Tony on.”
    “I’m here,” Mott said.
    “Are you in the FBI system?”
    “Yeah, we can see the screen. Shawn’s imping that he’s the Tactical Operations Center in Washington, issuing codes. The tactical agent in the field’s responding like it’s business as usual.”
    “Can you trace the call back to where Shawn is?”
    Mott said, “We don’t have a warrant but I’ll pull some strings at Pac Bell. Give me a minute or two.”
    Outside, the sound of heavy trucks. The helicopter was closer.
    Gillette could hear the hysterical sobbing of Elana’s mother and her brother’s angry words coming from the living room. Elana herself saidnothing. He saw her cross herself, glance once at him hopelessly and bury her head in the carpet beside her mother.
    Oh, Jesus, what’ve I done?
    A few minutes later Bishop came back on the line. “Pac Bell’s running the trace. It’s a landline. They’ve narrowed down the central office and exchange—he’s somewhere in western San Jose, near Winchester Boulevard. Where Phate’s warehouse was.”
    Gillette asked, “You think he’s in the San Jose Computer Products building? Maybe he got back inside after you finished going through it.”
    “Or maybe he’s someplace nearby—there’re dozens of old warehouses around there. I’m ten minutes away,” the detective said. “I’ll go over there now. Brother, I wish we knew who Shawn was.”
    Something occurred to Gillette. As when he was writing code, he applied this hypothesis against the known facts and rules of logic. He came to a conclusion. He said, “I have a thought about that.”
    “Shawn?”
    “Yeah. Where’s Bob Shelton?”
    “At home. Why’re you asking?”
    “Call and find out if he’s really there.”
    “Okay. I’ll call you back from the car.”
    A few minutes later the Papandolos phone rang and Gillette grabbed the receiver. Frank Bishop was calling back as he sped down San Carlos toward Winchester.
    “Bob should be home,” Bishop said, “but there’s no answer. You’re wrong if you’re thinking Bob’s Shawn, though.”
    Looking out the window, seeing another police car cruise by, followed by a military-type truck, Gillette said, “No, Frank, listen: Shelton claimed he hated computers, didn’t know anything about them. But remember: he had that hard drive in his house.”
    “The what?”
    “That disk we saw—it’s the kind of hardware only people who did serious hacking or ran bulletin boards a few years ago would use.”
    “I don’t know,” Bishop said slowly. “Maybe it was evidence or something.”
    “Has he ever worked a computer case before this?”
    “Well, no . . .”
    Gillette continued, “And he disappeared for a while before they raided Phate’s house in Los Altos. He had time to send that message about the assault code and give Phate a chance to get away. And, think about it—it was because of him that Phate got inside ISLEnet and got the FBI computer addresses and tactical codes. Shelton said he went online to check me out. But what he was really doing was leaving the password and address of the CCU computer for Phate—so he could crack ISLEnet.”
    “But Bob’s not a computer person.”
    “He says he isn’t. But do you know for sure? Do you go over to his house