The 6 A. M. national feed began with the collapse of Silicon Valley’s Surveillance and Targeting Technologies and the outbursts of betrayal from its devastated shareholders. Networks had hovered over the SatTek story for days like news helicopters at a crime scene, the downdraft creating a turbulence of uninformed speculation that seemed to feed less on new facts than on itself. The disintegration of a key manufacturer of components for anti-terror and missile guidance systems had left the cottage industry of analysts at a loss for explanations, though not for words, and a new surge had been triggered by the arrival of U.S. Marshals to secure the chaotic SatTek facility.

Through a breach in the veil of drizzling fog, Gage caught a glimpse of Mount Sutro rising two thousand feet above sea level. The radio and television tower stood poised like a monstrous, three-pronged gigging spear, clouds masking its barbs. Anger surged when he realized that the news channels would soon abandon SatTek to obsess over Burch’s shooting, and through that obsession lay waste to Burch and his wife’s intimate lives. He took in a breath, then gripped the steering wheel as his body warmed from within. He exhaled when he recognized the source: how much easier it was to rage at the media than at a faceless and anonymous-what? Thug? Lunatic? Assassin?

Gage jabbed the off button, then stared at the pavement ahead and at the lane lines bracketing him: a familiar path now leading him into the unknown. He drove the rest of the way listening only to his racing thoughts against the background of the gusting wind, the raindrops tapping his windshield, and the rhythmic sweep of his wipers.

Gage spotted Lieutenant Humberto “Spike” Pacheco at the end of a wide hallway, leaning against the wall outside the packed emergency waiting room. Thick arms crossed above his belly flared out the front panels of his navy sports jacket. It revealed a middle-aged paunch that belied the childhood nickname he carried with him when he had joined Gage at SFPD thirty years earlier.