"Impossible! Ridiculous!"

"That is what I said," Jamal told him. "But there are witnesses. And he had the camera with him when they caught him."

"Oh, no." Kemel moaned. He closed his eyes to squeeze out the light. "Oh, no, this can't be true. Why would he do something like this?"

"I don't know, brother. Perhaps if you were home..."

Yes! Home! He had to go home immediately!

But he could not. Not yet.

"I will come as soon as I can. But I cannot leave right now."

"What business could be more important than this?" Jamal said with what sounded like scorn. Never in all his years had he spoken to Kemel like that. He would not use that tone if he knew the nature of Kemel's business here.

Kemel ached to tell his younger brother why he was in America but did not dare. Jamal and his whole family would be in jeopardy if it was discovered that Kemel had breathed so much as a word of it to him.

"Where is Ghali now?"

"It took me all night, but I managed to secure his release. I am keeping him at my house-I have taken responsibility for him."

Kemel calculated that the eight-hour time difference made it six a.m. in Riyadh. "Thank you, Jamal. I can never thank you enough."

"This is far from over, Kemel. I will do whatever I can, but Ghali may have to stand trial."

Kemel nodded, though there was no one to see. Yes, yes, he knew. Especially since a foreigner was involved. The Saudi authorities seldom pa.s.sed up a chance to demonstrate the superiority of Islamic Law to westerners. Even if this American woman asked that no charges be brought, they might still proceed with trial and punishment.

And punishment would mean the loss of Ghali's right hand.

How could this happen? Ghali had always been wild and headstrong, yes, but never a thief. What could have possessed him? He wanted for nothing, yet he stole a camera! A camera A camera! There were almost a dozen fine cameras lying about the house!

This made no sense.

He had to turn to a higher power for help. Tomorrow was Friday, the holy day. He was bound to say his noontime prayers in the mosque. Tomorrow Kemel would pray all day in the mosque for his errant son.

FRIDAY.

After a couple of rounds of answering-machine tag, Milkdud's last message had said to meet him at Canova-not Canova's, just Canova-on West Fifty-first at ten-thirty. So that was when Jack showed up. He rode the lemming crowd of parents and kids streaming toward the red neon Radio City sign dead ahead on the far side of Sixth Avenue. With Ruth's Chris behind him and Le Bernadin across the street, Jack found Canova.

He leaned his forehead against the front window and peered past the faux pilings lined up on the other side of the gla.s.s. Looked like one of those buffet places that had been multiplying like coat hangers through most of the nineties.

He stepped inside and looked for Milkdud.

Canova was a little more elaborate than most of its buffet kin. Usually they were strictly takeout-fill your containers at the buffet counter, weigh and pay, then be on your way. Canova offered two buffet areas, and seating.

The crowd was thin-still a while before the lunch mob hit-but Jack didn't spot Milkdud. And Milkdud was hard to miss.

He tapped the Korean guy wiping a nearby table.

"I was supposed to meet someone here-" he began.

"I don't know," the Korean said quickly, vigorously shaking his head. "I don't know."

"He's a black guy," Jack said. He pointed to his forehead. "And up here he's got-"

"Oh, yes." He pointed to the left, toward a sign with an arrow and the word SEATING. Jack wondered how he'd missed that. "Over there. He over there."

Jack stepped through the small brick arch and checked out the extra seating area. He saw the back of a tall thin black guy, short-cropped hair, facing the wall. Jack ducked back to the buffet area, bought a Pepsi, then dropped into the seat opposite Milkdud.

"Sushi for breakfast?" Jack said, checking out Milkdud's tray.

"Hey, Jack," Milkdud said, extending his hand across the postage-stamp table. "Got to preserve my slim boyish figure, man."

"For hacking, right?"

He shrugged. "A spare tire can keep me from where I want to go sometimes. Besides, this is brunch and you really can't call California rolls sushi."

They went back years. Jack kept running into this tall guy-Milkdud had worn dreadlocks then-at the revival houses around the city. They started talking, and finally got to the point of trust where they'd lend each other tapes and discs of cherished films. But if Jack had ever known the name the man's mother called him, he'd long since forgotten. He was Milkdud-or Dud-to the world. Long, lean, with milk-chocolate skin, a laid-back look, and an easy smile; but all people seemed to remember about the guy-even in the days when he had those huge dreadlocks-was the big, black Aaron Neville-cla.s.s mole in the center of his forehead. Some cla.s.s clown during his growing up must have compared it to a certain brand of chocolate-coated caramel, and the name had stuck.

"I stand corrected," Jack said. "So what are you up to these days?"

"Working in the Coconuts up the street."

"They're hiring MIT grads now?"

Milkdud shrugged. "I'm in the laser disc department. The hours are flexible, and the discounts help me keep up my collection."

Jack nodded. Flexible hours... that was something Milkdud needed for his real pa.s.sion. Yeah, he was a movie freak, but old buildings were his first love.

"How many discs you got now?"

Another shrug. "Lost count. But I'm glad you called. Been meaning to get in touch with you about a recent purchase."

Jack straightened. "Something on my want list?"

Milkdud reached down and pulled a plastic Coconuts bag from under the table. He handed it across to Jack.

"Yes!" Jack said when he looked inside. He pulled out a laser disc of An Unmarried Woman Unmarried Woman. "How'd you find it?"

The 1978 Jill Clayburgh-Alan Bates drama was one of Gia's favorite films. Its charms eluded Jack-he'd never been particularly taken by any of Paul Mazursky's work-but he'd been trying for years to buy or tape a copy for Gia. He religiously checked the schedules of all the cable movie channels he subscribed to-TCM, AMC, TMC, Cinemax, Starz, Encore, and the rest-but they rarely listed it, or when they did, he always found out about it too late to set his recorder.

Milkdud said, "One of the used places down on Mac-Dougal. It's a good transfer but it's Hong Kong."

"I see that. Not dubbed, I hope."

"No-just Cantonese subt.i.tles."

"Subt.i.tles are no problem. Can I borrow it?"

"Yeah. As long as you want. Just don't forget where you got it."

"You like like it?" Jack knew Milkdud as a Guinea gross-out maven. Heavy into Argento, Bava, and Fulci. Hard to believe he'd even sit through it?" Jack knew Milkdud as a Guinea gross-out maven. Heavy into Argento, Bava, and Fulci. Hard to believe he'd even sit through An Unmarried Woman An Unmarried Woman, let alone want it in his collection.

"Nah. But it's so d.a.m.n hard to find, I feel I should have a copy. Weird, huh?"

"Just the collecting disease."

Jack understood; he suffered himself. "Your timing is perfect, Dud." Now he had at least one Christmas gift for Gia she wouldn't be expecting. "I'll do a dub and get it back to you as soon as..." Jack hesitated, feeling bad about asking Milkdud for another favor after he'd found Gia's movie for him, but he had no choice. "And... I need your help."

"Your message mentioned a building hack."

"Right. I spotted your squiggle in the Hand Building last night."

Milkdud's eyes lit as he smiled. "The Hand Building... the twenty-five story ferroconcrete on Forty-fifth. Yeah, she's a beauty. A prime example of postwar urban architecture. My handle's still there? Cool. Hacked her about three years ago. Should've brought my notes, then I could give you the exact date and some details. A very cool place. That lady's full of blind s.p.a.ces."

"You keep notes?" Jack said. This was great news. "Like some sort of hacking diary?"

"I like to think of it simply as 'exploring.' We were calling it 'hacking' back in the seventies, but then the computer geeks co-opted the term. I don't like the comparison. Computer hacking implies mischief, malevolence, and malfeasance."

"Not in its pure form," Jack said.

"True. The pure computer hacker is an explorer. He wants to gain entry, open all the doors, find all the hidden places, learn all the secrets, and leave everything pretty much as he found it. That's what I do. I get into a building and explore all the s.p.a.ces the workaday occupants never see, don't even know exist, then I get out."

"But not without leaving your 'Killroy-was-here' squiggle."

Milkdud smiled. "Which, in a bow to CB culture, we call a 'handle.'"

"How the h.e.l.l did you ever get into this?"

A shrug. "It's sort of a rite of pa.s.sage at MIT."

"For everyone?"

"h.e.l.l, no. It's got its dangers. First off, you can get killed. We use roofs and elevator shafts a lot, and those shafts are dangerous. Second, it's illegal. You may not mean any harm, but try explaining that to the Man. At the very least, it's trespa.s.sing. At worst, it's attempted robbery. And you'd better not be claustrophobic, because your hallways are air shafts and ducts."

Jack nodded. "I can see how that might weed out quite a few."

"Better believe it. And add to the weeds all the ones who just don't get it."

Jack slapped the side of his head. "You're kidding. You mean there's actually some people out there who don't think crawling through air shafts is cool fun?"

Milkdud smiled. "One or two. But the ones who really understand us are the computer hackers. And there's a fair amount of crossover. A good number of keyboard geeks, at least the ones who aren't acrophobic and claustrophobic, hack buildings too. Back at MIT I used to explore with a guy named Mike MacLaglen-expert phreaker and ice in his veins when it came to building hacks. But he wasn't pure, man. There's no money in building hacking. He dropped out to hack video chips. Don't know where he is now. But he was good."

"As good as you?"

"h.e.l.l, no."

"And you're still hacking?"

"Yeah. Got a curious nature, I guess." He sighed. "But it's getting harder. Security's getting better and better. Still, when you get into the right sort of building"-his eyes unfocused here-"you know, one that's been remodeled a dozen or two times over the years-and you start finding all these blind s.p.a.ces in corners, and stairways to nowhere, and maybe even a tiny sealed-off room in the middle of a floor, and you know you're the pioneer hacker here because yours is the first handle to get marked on the walls of those s.p.a.ces... I tell you, Jack, there's nothing like it."

Jack shook his head. A brilliant guy, but definitely a few kinks in his Slinky.

"Say, I wanted to be in on a meeting in a certain office on the twenty-first floor of the Hand Building. Could you help me?"

"Sure."

Excellent, Jack thought. This is going to be easier than I thought.

"So you could place an AV pickup behind a grille where I could see and hear what's going down?"

Milkdud shook his head. "No way."

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it. That wasn't the reply he'd been expecting.

"No way? I thought you just said-"

"I said I'd help, but I'm not bugging the place for you. That's against the code."

"What code?" Jack tried to hide his annoyance, but he was sure some leaked through. "The official building hackers' code of ethics?"

"Maybe." Milkdud stayed cool. "Don't know about any official code, but I, know it goes against Milkdud's."

Jack leaned back and sipped his Pepsi. "d.a.m.n, Milkdud. I was counting on you."

"You want to eavesdrop these days, you don't need anything in the room. You just bounce a laser beam off the window gla.s.s and you'll hear every word they say."

"I'm fresh out of lasers today."

"You can buy one in dozens of these 'executive security' places all over town. I think there's even one on Fifth Avenue around the corner from the Hand."

"My operation's not exactly high tech, Dud. No way I could rig up a laser on Forty-fifth Street. You see that stuff on TV all the time, but I work in the real world. And besides, I need more than just audio. I want to see see into that office. The meeting itself isn't as important as who's present and what's said into that office. The meeting itself isn't as important as who's present and what's said after after the meeting." the meeting."

"So," Milkdud said, "why don't you get in there and watch and listen yourself?"

"Me... hack my first building... in midtown... during business hours? Right."

Jack had a vision of himself wedged into a ventilation duct, mewing like a kitten up a tree, while firemen and EMS men broke through walls and acetylene torched their way through the galvanized metal to cut him free.

And then his picture on the front pages of the Post Post and the and the Daily News Daily News. He could see the headlines: