Status Updates From Critical Mass (V.I. Warshaw...

I sat in the tub under the shower, rinsing the mud out of my hair. When I finally felt clean, I filled the tub and lay back, almost comatose, letting the hot water soak into my ripped-up muscles.

Twice before, electronically sophisticated thugs had jumped me in my own place. As my pals in Homeland Security had proven, the most sophisticated security is meaningless for someone with the right equipment.

“Victoria, you are so incoherent that you can barely speak, let alone drive,” Max said. “You’ve had a rough day, but besides that, the letter you brought has been a deep shock for Lotty. Let’s stop trying to untangle this knot and get some rest.”

Maybe Cordell Breen was right and I wasn’t enough of a detective for a case this intellectual. And maybe I’m not enough of a mystery reader for a book like this so computeristic!

“DTs,” I printed in block capitals, short for Drug Thugs. “DTs killed Schlafly and Kitty (probably). HSTs—Homeland Security Thugs—are monitoring my e-mail because Cordell Breen has asked FBI to find Martin Binder.

Japan and England had also been trying to build a bomb; our history books never mentioned that. Every war room everywhere wanted the most devastating way to obliterate as many women, children, men, dogs and trees as they could.