The iron gates swung open, and the car drove up the shaded driveway to the house that slowly came into view. This was Holmby Hills, the wealthiest area of Beverly Hills. The billionaires lived here, in residences hidden from the street by high gates and dense foliage. In this part of town, security cameras were all painted green, and tucked back unobtrusively.

The house came into view. It was a Mediterranean-style villa, cream colored, and large enough for a family of ten. Evans, who had been speaking to his office, flipped his cell phone shut and got out as the car came to a stop.

Birds chirped in the ficus trees. The air smelled of the gardenia and jasmine that bordered the driveway. A hummingbird hung near the purple bougainvillea at the garage. It was, Evans thought, a typical California moment. Evans had been raised in Connecticut and schooled in Boston; even after five years in California, the place still seemed exotic to him.

He saw that another car was parked in front of the house: a dark gray sedan. It had government license plates.

From out of the front door came Morton's assistant, Sarah Jones, a tall blond woman of thirty, as glamorous as any movie star. Sarah was dressed in a white tennis skirt and pink top, her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Morton kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You playing today?"

"I was. My boss came back early." She shook Evans's hand and turned back to Morton. "Good trip?"

"Fine. Drake is morose. And he won't drink. It gets tiresome."

As Morton started toward the door, Sarah said, "I think I ought to tell you, they're here right now."

"Who is?"

"Professor Kenner. And another guy with him. Foreign guy."

"Really? But didn't you tell them they had to-"

"Make an appointment? Yes, I did. They seem to think that doesn't apply to them. They just sat down and said they'd wait."

"You should have called me-"

"They got here five minutes ago."

"Huh. Okay." He turned to Evans. "Let's go, Peter."

They went inside. Morton's living room looked out on the garden in back of the house. The room was decorated with Asian antiques, including a large stone head from Cambodia. Sitting erectly on the couch were two men. One was an American of middle height, with short gray hair and glasses. The other was very dark, compact, and very handsome despite the thin scar that ran down the left side of his face in front of his ear. They were dressed in cotton slacks and lightweight sport coats. Both men sat on the edge of the couch, very alert, as if they might spring up at any moment.

"Look military, don't they?" Morton muttered, as they went into the room.

The two men stood. "Mr. Morton, I'm John Kenner from MIT, and this is my colleague, Sanjong Thapa. A graduate student from Mustang. In Nepal."

Morton said, "And this is my my colleague, Peter Evans." colleague, Peter Evans."

They shook hands all around. Kenner's grip was firm. Sanjong Thapa gave a very slight bow as he shook hands. He spoke softly, with a British accent. "How do you do."

"I didn't expect you," Morton said, "so soon."

"We work quickly."

"So I see. What's this about?"

"I'm afraid we need your help, Mr. Morton." Kenner smiled pleasantly at Evans and Sarah. "And unfortunately, our discussion is confidential."

"Mr. Evans is my attorney," Morton said, "and I have no secrets from my assistant-"

"I'm sure," Kenner said. "You may take them into your confidence whenever you choose. But we must speak to you alone."

Evans said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to see some identification."

"Of course," Kenner said. Both men reached for wallets. Evans was shown Massachusetts driver's licenses, MIT faculty cards, and passports. Then they handed out business cards.

John Kenner, PhDCenter for Risk AnalysisMassachusetts Institute of Technology 454 Massachusetts Avenue 454 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02138 Sanjong Thapa, PhD Sanjong Thapa, PhD Research Associate Research Associate Department of Geoenvironmental Engineering Department of Geoenvironmental Engineering Building 4-C 323 Building 4-C 323 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02138 Cambridge, MA 02138 There were telephone numbers, fax, e-mail. Evans turned the cards over. It all looked straightforward.

Kenner said, "Now, if you and Miss Jones will excuse us..."

They were outside, in the hallway, looking into the living room through the large glass doors. Morton was sitting on one couch. Kenner and Sanjong were on the other. The discussion was quiet. In fact, it looked to Evans just like one more of the endless investment meetings that Morton endured.

Evans picked up the hall phone and dialed a number. "Center for Risk Analysis," a woman said.

"Professor Kenner's office, please."

"One moment." Clicking. Another voice. "Center for Risk Analysis, Professor Kenner's office."

"Good afternoon," Evans said. "My name is Peter Evans, and I'm calling for Professor Kenner."

"I'm sorry, he is not in the office."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Professor Kenner is on extended leave."

"It is important that I reach him," Evans said. "Do you know how I could do that?"

"Well, it shouldn't be hard, since you are in Los Angeles and so is he."

So she had seen the caller ID, Evans thought. He would have imagined Morton had a blocked ID. But evidently not. Or perhaps the secretary in Massachusetts had a way to unblock it.

"Well," Evans said, "can you tell me-"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Evans," she said, "but I'm not able to help you further."

Click.

Sarah said, "What was that about?"

Before Evans could answer, a cell phone rang in the living room. He saw Kenner reach into his pocket, and answer briefly. Then he turned, looked at Evans, and waved.

Sarah said, "His office called him?"

"Looks like it."

"So I guess that's Professor Kenner."

"I guess it is," Evans said. "And we're dismissed."

"Come on," Sarah said. "I'll give you a ride home."

They walked past the open garage, the row of Ferraris glinting in the sun. Morton owned nine vintage Ferraris, which he kept in various garages. These included a 1947 Spyder Corsa, a 1956 Testa Rossa, and a 1959 California Spyder, each worth more than a million dollars. Evans knew this because he reviewed the insurance every time Morton bought another one. At the far end of the line was Sarah's black Porsche convertible. She backed it out, and he climbed in beside her.

Even by Los Angeles standards, Sarah Jones was an extremely beautiful woman. She was tall, with a honey-colored tan, shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, perfect features, very white teeth. She was athletic in the casual way that California people were athletic, generally showing up for work in a jogging suit or short tennis skirt. She played golf and tennis, scuba dived, mountain biked, skied, snowboarded, and God knew what else. Evans felt tired whenever he thought about it.

But he also knew that she had "issues," to use the California word. Sarah was the youngest child of a wealthy San Francisco family; her father was a powerful attorney who had held political office; her mother was a former high fashion model. Sarah's older brothers and sisters were all happily married, all successful, and all waiting for her to follow in their footsteps. She found her family's collective success a burden.

Evans had always wondered why she chose to work for Morton, another powerful and wealthy man. Or why she had come to Los Angeles at all, since her family regarded any address south of the Bay Bridge to be hopelessly tawdry. But she was good at her job, and devoted to Morton. And as George often said, her presence was aesthetically pleasing. And the actors and celebrities who attended Morton's parties agreed; she had dated several of them. Which further displeased her family.

Sometimes Evans wondered if everything she did was rebellion. Like her driving-she drove quickly, almost recklessly, shooting down Benedict Canyon, heading into Beverly Hills. "Do you want to go to the office, or your apartment?"

"My apartment," he said. "I have to pick up my car."

She nodded, swerved around a slow-moving Mercedes, then cut left down a side street. Evans took a deep breath.

"Listen," she said. "Do you know what netwar is?"

"What?" He wasn't sure he had heard her over the sound of the wind.

"Netwar."

"No," he said. "Why?"

"I heard them talking about it, before you showed up. Kenner and that Sanjong guy."

Evans shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell. You sure it wasn't netware?"

"Might have been." She sped across Sunset, running a yellow light, and then downshifted as she came to Beverly. "You still on Roxbury?"

He said he was. He looked at her long legs, protruding from the short white skirt. "Who were you going to play tennis with?"

"I don't think you know him."

"It's not, uh..."

"No. That's over."

"I see."

"I'm serious, it's over. over."

"Okay, Sarah. I hear you."

"You lawyers are all so suspicious."

"So, it's a lawyer you're playing with?"

"No, it is not a lawyer. I don't play with lawyers."

"What do you do with them?"

"As little as possible. Like everybody else."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Except you, of course," she said, giving him a dazzling smile.

She accelerated hard, making the engine scream.

Peter Evans lived in one of the older apartment buildings on Roxbury Drive in the flats of Beverly Hills. There were four units in his building, across the street from Roxbury Park. It was a nice park, a big green expanse, always busy. He saw Hispanic nannies chatting in groups while they minded the children of rich people, and several oldsters sitting in the sun. Off in a corner, a working mother in a business suit had taken off lunch to be with the kids.

The car screeched to a stop. "Here you are."

"Thanks," he said, getting out.

"Isn't it time to move? You've been here five years."

"I'm too busy to move," he said.

"Got your keys?"

"Yeah. But there's always one under the doormat." He reached in his pocket, jingled metal. "All set."

"See you." And she raced off, squealed around the corner, and was gone.

Evans walked through the little sunlit courtyard, and went up to his apartment, on the second floor. As always, he had found Sarah slightly distressing. She was so beautiful, and so flirtatious. He always had the feeling that she kept men at a distance by keeping them off balance. At least, she kept him him off balance. He could never tell if she wanted him to ask her out or not. But considering his relationship with Morton, it was a bad idea. He would never do it. off balance. He could never tell if she wanted him to ask her out or not. But considering his relationship with Morton, it was a bad idea. He would never do it.

As soon as he walked in the door, the phone began to ring. It was his assistant, Heather. She was going home early because she felt sick. Heather frequently felt sick toward the afternoon, in time to beat rush hour traffic. She tended to call in sick on Fridays or Mondays. Yet the firm showed a surprising reluctance to fire her; she had been there for years.

Some said she had had a relationship with Bruce Black, the founding partner, and that, ever since, Bruce lived in constant dread that his wife would find out, since she had all the money. Others claimed Heather was seeing another of the firm's partners, always unspecified. A third story was that she had been on the scene when the firm moved offices from one Century City skyscraper to another, in the course of which she stumbled on some incriminating documents, and copied them.

Evans suspected the truth was more mundane: that she was a clever woman who had worked in the firm long enough to know everything about wrongful termination suits, and now carefully gauged her repeated infractions against the cost and aggravation of their firing her. And in this way worked about thirty weeks a year.

Heather was invariably assigned to the best junior associate in the firm, on the assumption that a really good attorney wouldn't be hampered by her inconstancy. Evans had tried for years to get rid of her. He was promised a new assistant next year. He saw it as a promotion.

"I'm sorry you don't feel well," he told Heather dutifully. One had to go along with her pretense.

"It's just my stomach," she said. "I have to see the doctor."

"Are you going today?"

"Well, I'm trying to get an appointment..."

"All right, then."

"But I wanted to tell you they just set a big meeting for the day after tomorrow. Nine o'clock in the big conference room."

"Oh?"