John Garfield Crawford (IV) was not a serial killer, despite being a white man in his middle years who spent most of his time alone, with three names. He was an investigative reporter. He usually wrote books, but would also consider shorter articles, or even television, if he was interested in the story.

Wild stories about magic girls and angels straight out of bad Japanese cartoons did not interest him. That belonged with the Space Elvis stories in the checkout-stand tabloids. But there were things that interested him about how Smithfield had come to his well-deserved end.

The first thing he noticed was that the van and the body had apparently disappeared shortly after the story broke. Redwood City police said the van had not been stolen. The FBI had been looking for it, and suddenly they weren't; never had been looking for it.

It didn't take a Jack Crawford to smell a cover-up, but it did to get a line on what was really going on. After a month, he found the NSA¹ was involved. After four months, he finally found someone who would talk.

"Smoke?" asked Crawford.

The NSA man said, "No, gave it up . . . you can't even smoke in your car back in Maryland. I damn near lost my license over it!"

Crawford said, "All right. I see the pictures. What do they mean?"

"Smithfield was taken out with an energy weapon. Probably a laser; maybe a particle beam."

"We have things like that?" asked Crawford.

"Something like that. But this had to be a portable weapon. The best prototype we have will just fit on a tank, and it needs a trailer full of fuel and coolant."

"So you're telling me aliens did it?" asked Crawford dubiously.

"That is one theory. I'm not kidding; the boys really talked about it. But what most of us think--and what I think--is that there is a smart guy out there who figured out how to make a weapon a lot better than anything so far. Maybe an ex-Soviet. They had a hell of a lot of secret programs, and I mean secret. Maybe they weren't all dead ends . . . maybe our smart guy used some of that secret research and built this zap-gun."

Crawford asked, "So why don't you just offer him a lot of money for it?"

The NSA man said, "We did. Do you know how much we've paid just their nuclear scientists to sit home and twiddle their thumbs? But we don't know who he is, and if we did, I think he must have heard our offer now and is not interested."

"So what's his motivation?" asked Crawford. "Conquer the world by himself?"

"That's another possibility . . . not a sane one, but a more likely than aliens. Again, I think like most of us that he has a political agenda. Or she; could be a woman. Actually, considering the targets--"

"Targets?" said Crawford. "You mean there have been more?"

"Yes . . . Anomalous incidents like Smithfield were first reported in England and then in Japan, starting a dozen years ago. Seven years ago, the first definite incident took place here, in the Bay Area. Since then there have been reports across the country and even a couple of properly investigated incidents overseas. But there are more incidents here than anywhere else."

Crawford said, "Interesting timing . . . those are exactly the times the magic girl and angel stories started."

The NSA spook shrugged. "Disinformation. We have some friends in the tabloids and trash TV. And it's good for business. The whole magic girl fad has come back. My granddaughters love it."

"But why is this good for you guys?" asked Crawford.

"What is better for John Q. Public? Telling them that some nut is going around shooting rayguns? Or letting him believe it's all hysteria and hoax?"

Crawford nodded his head. "So, why are you telling me this?"

"Because the current policy is not working. We aren't any closer to finding the guy than we were when I started working on this five years ago. I don't control policy and I don't want to get fired. But if you can really crack open the story, the Agency will have to scrap the current policy."

"And if I am caught or killed . . ."

". . . nobody will disavow anything because you don't work for us."

Crawford said, "Right . . . You said the choice of targets might indicate a woman?"

"Yes. There are all sorts of targets, including some that don't make any sense to anyone, but the one consistent pattern involves serial rapists and serial killers. Our friend has fried at least fifteen men that fit the profile. Nine of them in the San Francisco Bay Area, and all but one of them in Northern California."

"Where was the other one?" asked Crawford.

"In Michigan," said the NSA man. "That was the hardest one to cover up."

"Why?"

The NSA man said. "It was another van, but it didn't just have a hole in it. The FBI got very lucky; there was one VIN number on the pieces they found. You put all the pieces together, they'd fit in your briefcase."

"What about the perpetrator?" asked Crawford.

"They found a piece of him, too, enough for a DNA match."

The NSA could disappear a van and the body of a man whose mother didn't even want it, but they could not disappear Lisette Pinatabo. However wild her stories had been, she had described Smithfield and the van very vividly, even gotten a partial license number. She had resisted, but there is a limit to what a 70-pound, 11-year-old girl can do to a fit 225 pound man without a ready weapon.

After what other reporters had done when the story broke, her parents wouldn't let one near their daughter. Crawford had to speak to her, but he might get only one chance, and he needed to be sure he knew the right questions.

The first solid fact in the mystery was that Lisette had been admitted to the Emergency Room of Stanford Hospital. Crawford had a windfall there. The head of Pediatrics happened to be his high school sweetheart.

"What can you tell me, Debbie?"

Debbie said, "You won't get to see any of our records, and if they show up in your story, that finishes us."

"No, that's not how I work," said Crawford. Unless nothing else will do it. "But I have to talk to this kid if I'm going to get any further. I want to get a feel for her. Actually, I want to make sure I should talk to her at all. Did you get to know her?"

Debbie said, "No. I was at a conference when she was admitted. She was discharged before I came back."

Crawford said, "Discharged? How long were you gone?"

Debbie said, "I came back in three days. The Pinatabo child did not have severe physical injuries. Besides the rape trauma, her assailant inflicted a lot of shallow, painful cuts. One nipple was detached, but the worst injury was a broken humerus. It was a clean break, easily set. No major arteries or veins were opened.

Crawford said, "But she went home in less than three days."

Debbie said, "No. She was flown to a private clinic. I can't tell you where."

Crawford asked, "Was it a government agency that moved her? I mean, Feds of some kind?"

She looked at him very closely. "No. It was a private arrangement. Someone who wants to remain anonymous paid her bills here. For the clinic as well, I presume. The Pinatabos are not wealthy. And as far as I know, they haven't taken money for their daughter's story."

Crawford said, "I'm not planning on offering them any . . . can you at least tell me who saw her while she was here?"

Again, she looked hard into him. Finally she said, "One name. Don't come back to me if she doesn't give you what you want."

"Fair enough, Deb."

Debbie said, "The first person who saw the Pinatabo girl here was a fourth year medical student. I asked her what happened. She told me a different story than she told the others, including the police."

"What, about angels?" said Crawford.

Debbie said, "No. She said she knew who had brought the girl in, but that she couldn't tell the police. She said that gangsters had found the girl and helped her, but they didn't want to talk to police."

"Gangsters?" asked Crawford.

Debbie said, "She meant from one of the drug gangs. She said they were very young, and it was wrong to send them to jail when they helped the girl."

"Interesting," mused Jack Crawford. "So our public-spirited Mr. Jones is actually telling the truth. Or some of it."

Debbie said, "Yes. Sickening, isn't it? Last week we had some movie people here. They want to make a movie about it. Something like 'Street Angels.'"

Crawford said, "Right . . . You're taking a big risk here. Why are you protecting this student?"

Debbie said, "You meet her, you'll know. And if you screw her life up, Johnny, you are going straight to Hell." Debbie started writing something on a pad, taking out her PDA for a moment to check something. "This is her," she said, tearing off the top sheet and handing it to him. "But she's not here now."

"Why?" asked Crawford.

Debbie said, "Vacation. She'll be back August 29 to start her internship. But you can reach her there." She pointed out a line.

"[email protected]?" Crawford was reasonably computer-literate for a geezer.

"She's married to the founder. One of the richest geeks in the Valley now," Debbie said.

Crawford was just a little too old to be comfortable with e-mail, so he let the lead on the medical student go until he could be sure to see her in person. That was as far as he could get on the Smithfield story, but the "anomalies" his contact in the NSA had given him needed to be looked into. He knew the Michigan story would be cold--especially when he found out it had a connection with the "Christmas Miracle" in Grosse Pointe--another source of bad movies, two of them, neither authorized . . .

Sure enough, the anomalies always occurred in the heights of the magic girl and angel stories. But that was disinformation--unless the story about disinformation was disinformation! Crawford laughed at the brief paranoid thought. Spooks like his source in the NSA were so obsessed with secrecy they often couldn't find their butts with both hands and a government-issue flashlight.

Most of the anomalies were old and cold, at least four years. But there was one that wasn't two years old yet, and it had an interesting filip: there was a survivor: Kevin L. Jones, none other than the last surviving brother of the famous Marvell, the Lord of the Blues himself, at least for Northern California. It wasn't a strain on his police contacts at all to find out that he was still alive. His favorite contact, a rumpled plainclothes officer in the Oakland PD named John Shaw, said Kevin Jones was really a civilian now. "He married his nurse, do you believe it? Real knockout, too. Man, she must like money a lot to sleep with Marvell's little bro."

Jack Crawford said, "I remember him from a few years back. He was better looking than Marvell."

Shaw said, "Was, bro. He looks worse than the Elephant Man now."

Crawford knew the Bay Area better than any region except the New York-Washington corridor. He'd been born in Oakland, far enough back for it to have been unremarkable to be a white boy born in Oakland. He'd returned here to track down what was, in truth, a minor story, however great the personal tragedies that made it up. This was the place he felt was home, and he was annoyed when government or big-ass corporations made it worse than it had to be. Disappearing that van had been a slap in the face to everyone Smithfield had murdered. One way or another, he was going to make enough trouble so they'd think twice before doing something that stupid and cruel again.

But to do that, he had to find a story that people would listen to, and that meant a story about people, not dry facts. So, wise enough to avoid driving the perpetually overloaded Bay Area freeway system (made worse by the muckup of the Bay Bridge rework), he took trains to El Cerrito Plaza, and caught a cab from there up to the home of Jackie Jones, Marvell and Kevin's mother. He'd interviewed her before, a couple of times. He sent off the cab without thinking twice; she was a lonely lady who needed company, and he expected to be there for hours.

"Oh, Mr. Crawford! Come in!" She made a path through the guards for him, and took him into her kitchen. She filled him in on what was going on at Church, and what she heard from Mrs. Maldaba about a new deal to bring back the Raiders again, while serving Chicory and sugar cookies.

At length, Crawford got to the point. "I'm here to talk with Kevin, if I may."

"Kevin? What about?"

"Well, about how he got hurt so badly . . . the government is covering up something."

"Covering up?" asked Mrs. Jones.

Crawford said, "Yes . . . This isn't about Marvell's business, this is about what happened to Kevin." Crawford had calculated this moment, and had thought many times about changing his mind. But he had to shake something loose, so it was time to plant a rumor. "It has something to do with a new weapon. I think the government is testing it secretly."

"Testing it?" asked Mrs. Jones.

Crawford continued. "On people. Kevin wasn't the only one. I can't be sure yet, but Uncle Sam may be doing some target shooting, and boys like Kevin may be the targets."

"The government! Our government?"

<In for a penny . . . >"Mrs. Jones, Marvell and Kevin and the others in their business, they are just working for the government. What Marvell makes is peanuts compared to what the CIA makes on this. Would it really surprise you if they decided to use up a few boys like Kevin? They think they own you, anyway." He finished his Chicory. "'Frangible assets.' That's what they called you a few years ago. 'Frangible' is a fancy word meaning something not worth keeping after you use it once or twice." He set the cup down carefully. "Don't let anyone I told you this, or I will be 'frangible' myself."

He shifted his weight. "So, can I talk to Kevin?"

She looked as if she was about to pour him another cupful, but she stopped. "Kevin doesn't live here, Mr. Crawford."

Jack Crawford was surprised. He'd marked Kevin down as his mother's pet. "Really? I--I'm sorry, I assumed he was still here. I should have called."

"No, you don't want to be saying what you said over the phone. Especially my phone." She put the pot up. "Marvell told me that this room is the hardest in the house to bug now, so I have all my important talks in here."

Crawford said, "Well . . . can I drop in on him then? If his phone is bugged--"

Mrs. Jones said, "You can walk, if you like. He lives eight blocks down the street, in that big brick place with the pillars."

"He bought that place?" asked Crawford.

Mrs. Jones said, "No, no, he just stays there with his wife. Japanese girl, used to be his nurse. She made him move as soon as she married him."

"Really . . ."

"Can't say I blame her," said Mrs. Jones, "She's got a little girl, cute little thing. Wouldn't want her around Marvell's friends."

"Don't you see your son any more?" asked Jack Crawford.

Mrs. Jones said, "Oh, near every day! Like I said, it's just eight blocks. My legs ain't gave out yet, so I usually walk over. Someone always drives me back."

"Well . . . they grow up," said Crawford.

Mrs Jones said, "Yes, they do . . . gonna have some grandkids soon. Wife's carrying twins. I wish Marvell would get himself a wife."

He got up, and kissed her hand. "Thank you. I won't release anything until I have them nailed cold. They won't be able to touch Kevin after that."

Strolling up to the mansion, Crawford didn't see anything that looked like surveillance. Shaw was probably right; Kevin was a civilian, out of the loop, not worth watching. Still, he thought about looking for a back entrance, but not long. That would only make him look more interesting, if there actually was any surveillance.

There was another problem. It was late, close to ten. He could come back . . . but something inside said that he wouldn't get the story tomorrow he could get tonight.

The mansion was surrounded by a high iron fence. The gates were all lighted. He saw that the walk-in gate from Arlington had a camera and a phone. He picked it up and pressed the large red button above the keypad.

"My name is Jack Crawford. I need to speak with Mr. Kevin Jones. It is very important."