(Author's note: Grateful thanks to the incredibly helpful Captain Kirk E. Lane of the Mission, Kansas Police Department; Jeff Lanza of The Lanza Group, who told me what federal charges would be brought against the bad guy; and to ElizaPliza, for a GREAT plot bunny! Hope you like this, EP!)

.

The Santa Ana winds were shuddering against cars at street level in downtown Los Angeles; ten stories higher the gale roared and whistled, pulling at the flannel robe of the man who stood clutching a railing, staring at the street below.

The door to the enclosed stairwell opened, then the wind sucked it open sharply. The motion caught the eye of the man staring into the street. A man of about fifty in a dark business suit forced the door closed, and as he did, the man in the robe edged away, holding the railing as he went.

The man in the suit seemed to find nothing strange in the other man's garb or demeanor. He walked toward the robed man slowly, his expression unreadable, his hands open and slightly away from his sides. When he was a few yards away he said, "Judge Morse?" and his voice carried, even against the wind.

The judge shot a glance at the man in the suit, shook his head. "Leave me alone."

"I just want to talk. I'm not going to do anything dramatic. Not my style."

The judge stole another look. "Who are you? Police?"

"No, your honor. My name's Cabe Gallo, and I'm with Homeland Security."

For a moment the judge just kept staring downward. Cabe had actually opened his mouth to say something else when the judge lifted his head, as though he'd just now heard the words. "Homeland Security? Is investigating judicial misconduct?"

"No, sir. We're investigating the case of a hacker who's been trying to destroy prominent men in the federal government."

The judge heard that right away. He looked at Cabe with something close to hope, though he didn't let go of the railing. "You mean – You know – "

"We know you didn't send those text messages to female defendants. We know you haven't been trying to extort sexual favors from anyone."

Judge Morse caught his breath; it sounded like a sob. "Are you lying? To, to talk me down?"

"No, sir. You can see my badge if you want. This guy is good. I work with a special team, they're technological prodigies, and even they could only prove that the texts didn't come from you. They haven't been able to track him down yet. But we know you didn't do it."

The judge sighed raggedly, looked down into the street. "I did have an affair, though."

Cabe watched him silently.

"I swore, I swore to my wife that I wasn't. Then suddenly our emails are all over the internet. My life, my – life is a joke, public – and Carolyn was so humiliated. And then those women started saying – "

"For what it's worth, they were taken in, Judge. They really thought you were contacting them."

"I swore I wasn't doing that either, and of course Carolyn didn't believe me. No one did. No one. I couldn't – I was one of the youngest federal district court judges ever appointed. So proud of that. And I've ruined my own credibility. My marriage is over. And my career – "

"You have committed no criminal action." Even with his voice raised against the wind, Cabe sounded firm. "We know that. And as for your marriage, I think you should talk to your wife about that. She's on her way over here now."

"Carolyn?"

"I came over here to tell you that we know about the frame-up. I found the door open and saw your note. We know the number of the hotel where Carolyn is staying, so I called her. She told me where you keep your gun and where your car's parked. And she said there was easy roof access. She was very concerned."

Morse, staring at Cabe, gave a muffled sob. He took one hand off the railing to press it against his eyes. A violent gust whirled a piece of black plastic sheeting from somewhere in a circle around the roof and then far away.

"I couldn't sleep last night. The wind blew all night long."

"It does bad things to people's nerves," Cabe said.

Morse turned away from the railing, letting go finally. Without seeming to rush, Cabe was nonetheless beside him in a moment. The judge let Cabe put one hand on his arm and lead him toward the stairwell door.

Then he stopped, looking at Cabe with incredulity. "A – hacker? Put my personal emails on the internet? And framed me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"We're going to ask him that," Cabe said grimly, "as soon as we find him."

.

"I'll unlock the door for you," Walter said into the phone, walking down the stairs at Scorpion headquarters. "We're all here but Paige, and I expect her as soon as she gets Ralph from school. We'll catch her up if she gets here after you."

Unceremoniously, he disconnected the call and then punched the combination of numbers on his phone that unlocked the door. He looked around the lower level of the garage. He had passed Sylvester upstairs, cleaning the kitchen; Toby was sprawled on a couch, earbuds in place, listening to something that apparently amused him; and Happy was typing fast, looking intently at her monitor.

"Cabe's going to be here in a minute or two. Toby!"

Toby looked over and pulled out an earbud.

"Cabe's going to be here in a couple of minutes to give us an update on the case. And I've got one for him." And, as Toby sat up, looking interested, Walter looked over at Happy. "Is that the report on the Shiva Project?"

"No. Toby's doing that."

"You said you would," Toby said.

"No, that was the last case."

"I did the report on the last case," Walter said. "I did the report on the last four cases. Come on, people, we're government contractors. Our employers want reports, which is a reasonable request. Do I need to do them all?"

"You're the boss," Happy offered.

"That's sardonically funny," Walter said wryly. "Remind me to laugh, after Cabe leaves. Without his report."

Sylvester had come down from the kitchen and was opening a drawer in his desk. "I'll do the report, Walter," he said. He held up a small paper-wrapped square. "But this is the very last keyboard-cleaning wipe we have. The last."

"Talk to Paige about it. She's ordering the supplies now."

"Thank Heaven," Sylvester said devoutly.

"Excuse me?" Happy looked up again.

"I mean – " Sylvester began a little nervously. Then he looked at her directly. "You know, maybe we'll be able to count on having supplies besides cables and hardware."

Happy met his gaze; then looked away; then went back to typing, which was her way of admitting he was right.

When Cabe arrived a couple of minutes later, the others were sitting in a circle that included two empty chairs Walter had pulled over. "Update us, then I'll update you," Walter told him.

Cabe dropped into one of the empty chairs. "We've been working this through normal investigative techniques at the office. We've dug into the lives of the first two victims, the one who was framed for ties to terrorist groups and the one framed for embezzlement from the Commerce Department, as well as into the life of Judge Morse. Outside of their being successful white males in their 40s, we're not finding anything significant in common.

"The first victim is on TV sometimes as a spokesman for the Attorney General's office, but the other was a bureaucrat in the Commerce Department – a highly placed bureaucrat, but you wouldn't know who he was unless you went looking for him on the internet. Judges are in the public eye, of course, but Morse hadn't been involved in any high-profile cases. One of the victims is in Sacramento, one in Washington, D.C., and the judge is local. Obviously our suspect doesn't like authority figures, but the only other link we've found between the victims so far is – " his mouth quirked – "flimsy."

"What is it?" Toby asked.

"Their Facebook photos are similar."

Sylvester was closest to his computer, so he spun and his fingers rattled the keys. A moment later, three Facebook pages were cascaded on the screen, and the others came over to look at them. All three pictures were portraits taken by professional photographers, not candid shots; in all three the man stood with his wife on his right, one arm around her and clasping her lightly above the elbow; and all three wives were pretty blondes.

"Interesting," Toby said, resuming his seat.

"But not helpful, except that it reinforces the assumption that our hacker is male," Cabe said dryly. "I'm counting on your cyber work."

"Unfortunately I don't have a lot for you," Walter said. "The guy is really good. I've gone through the coding he used in hacking all three cases, and every time I think I've got something it dead-ends. But this morning I looked again at some code I'd noticed before, because it seemed superfluous. Just a little string. I couldn't figure it out at first, and then I realized I was making it too hard. It was a simple letter substitution code."

"A hacker name?" Happy asked.

Walter nodded. "He didn't use a hacker name or signature in the first two cases, but I guess he's getting really proud of himself."

"What's the name?" Cabe asked.

"Giant Killer."

Cabe raised his eyebrows, but before he could react there was a little choked, surprised sound from Happy.

They all looked at her, but after a moment she shook her head. "Just coincidence."

"But?" Cabe pressed.

"There's a website called nlox," she said. "It was started by hackers, but we talk about different kinds of things. You know, you start talking about who's getting hacked, pretty soon you're talking about whether they deserve it or what purpose is served, after a while you're talking about politics and your own personal experiences. There's a group of us on there, we just wind up meeting on various pages and talking. Or one of us posts something interesting and the rest of us kind of – gather and talk about it."

"And you think one of them might be our guy?" Walter asked.

"He's funny sometimes," Happy said stubbornly, as if someone had already disagreed with her. "I don't see our suspect as having a sense of – and I wouldn't even have noticed if we hadn't been working the case. But he really went off on that Commerce Department embezzler, I mean the one who was framed for embezzling. Said it showed the contempt of the ruling classes for other people's money. And this morning we were talking about the judge's phone being hacked, and he said the hacker probably just exposed what the judge was doing anyway, using his position to extort sex. He said something like, 'All the golden boys have grimy secrets.'"

"What's his user name?" Walter asked.

"Jack Giant Killer."

There was a second's silence.

"Sylvester?" Walter said.

"Hard to say with so many variables," Sylvester said, "but about one hundred thirty to one. Against its being coincidence."

"Good enough for me," Cabe said. "We can find the administrators of nlox, and track him through them."

"Except that if he was confident enough to use most of his user name as his hacker signature, he's probably no easier to trace through nlox than through his hacking." Walter shook his head. "But it's a start."

"We don't have to think digital only," Toby said. "Look, we have a connection to the guy. We can look at his previous posts and engage with him through Happy. We don't have to chase him. We figure out what he wants more than anything, we offer it, and get him to come to us."

"You mean – physically?" Happy said in a startled tone.

"I'm assuming he has corporeal existence and isn't merely an online entity," Toby said blandly.

"He could be anywhere in the world," Cabe objected.

"The fact that two of his victims were in California makes him seem pretty local. And anyway, this guy's capable of hacking the federal government. If we offer him something he wants enough, stealing a plane ticket is not going to be a challenge for him. It's just a question of motivation."

He stood and rolled his chair over to Happy's desk. "Happy, can you log into nlox and show me some of the threads where Jack Giant Killer has posted? If nlox has public profiles that would show his previous posts, that would be ideal. I don't want to make him nervous by hacking his website account."

"Yeah, there are profiles," Happy said, logging on and then standing back.

"Give me a few minutes, everyone," Toby said, leaning forward.

Happy stood behind him, reading over his shoulder. Sylvester began cleaning off his keyboard.

Toby looked up at Happy. "Your user name is 'Vibe Isolator'?"

"A vibration isolator protects a structure from outside shocks. It's valuable protection. Don't get weird on me."

"Oh. I'm not supposed to get weird," he said with a grin, and continued reading.

"Wooa," he said a moment later. "One angry dude."

Walter glanced at his smartphone, walked over to the door and looked out, closed it. "Right there," Happy said to Toby, pointing at something on the screen.

Toby read for a moment. "I don't know exactly how local he is, Cabe, but he is male, and American for sure."

"Well, that's something," Cabe said, rising. "Keep looking."

He walked upstairs to the kitchen, and there was a sound of cupboards opening. Walter checked his email.

"What is it with this guy and high school?" Toby mumbled. "Gotta be in his twenties. No one over thirty is still that bent out of shape about high school."

Cabe looked over the railing of the second floor and said plaintively, "There are eleven mini-bottles of apple juice in the refrigerator and no coffee."

"Bring one of those bottles down here, would you?" Walter said. "And talk to Paige about the coffee. She's ordering the supplies now."

"Thank God," Cabe muttered, and Happy shot a quick glare upward before looking back over Toby's shoulder. Cabe came downstairs and handed a little bottle of apple juice to Walter.

"He likes you, Happy," Toby said. "He doesn't like many people. And he's curious about you."

The door opened and Paige said, "Hi, everyone." Before anyone could respond, Ralph ran over to Walter and said, "Can I read some more about the 3-D printer?"

"Manners," Paige said.

Ralph sighed a little. "Hi Walter how are you?"

Walter shot an amused look at Paige. "I'm fine, Ralph, how are you?"

"I'm fine can I read more about the 3-D printer now?"

"Well, you know what your mom says about homework first."

With the tone of one telling a joke's punchline, Paige said, "Did it in the car coming over here."

"Well, then," Walter indicated a table at the far end of the garage, "have at it."

Ralph ran over happily to the table and scrambled up into a chair, swinging his feet as he pulled a huge open manual in front of him. Walter handed the apple juice to Paige, and she gave him a smile, opening the bottle and putting it in front of Ralph. Sylvester said, "Paige, we need more instrument-cleaning wipes."

"And coffee," Cabe said.

"Got it," Paige said, pulling a little notebook from her purse and making notes with a decidedly low-tech pencil. "Cabe, is there something new on the case?"

"We still haven't been able to trace the hacker," Walter answered before Cabe could say a word. "But I figured out his hacker signature, Giant Killer. Happy connected it to a guy she's been chatting with online. The guy calls himself Jack Giant Killer, and he's shown strong interest in two of the victims' cases."

"Is that enough to make him a real suspect?"

"Sly says it's a hundred thirty to one that he is."

Paige smiled at Sylvester. "Well, those are pretty good odds."

"Toby's reading Jack Giant Killer's posts," Walter continued, "to see if there's a way we can lure him out into the open faster than we can track him in cyberspace. Although frankly I think – "

"It's not authority, Cabe," Toby said, looking over at them. "It's status."

"What's not authority?" Paige asked.

Cabe opened his mouth but Walter beat him to the punch again. "Cabe thinks Giant Killer goes after highly-placed guys because he has problems with authority. And Toby thinks – " He waved at Toby.

"He wants status," Toby said. "It's not so much a question of believing that no one should give orders; he just thinks he should be giving them. The way he writes about the two cases, he clearly thinks that the hacker – which is to say, himself – should be getting the kind of attention Edward Snowden got. He thinks the hacker community doesn't understand the depth of his talent. It all sort of relates back to the high-school obsession. He resents the fact that the popular kids are popular when he's so much more brilliant than they are. He doesn't understand why guys he thinks are dumb get the girls." He looked at the screen and read, "'The world is locked in an eternal prom night, the Boy King standing over the masses with his trophy blonde and fake crown and fake smile, convincing the terminally mediocre that phoniness hath its privileges.'"

"Whoo," Paige said.

"Yeah, he can be kinda bitter," Happy said. "But he can be funnier than hell too."

"This is interesting," Cabe said. "But I need to know how these insights are going to help us catch the guy."

"I'm not sure they will," Walter said. "I think the best thing to do is to continue tracking him, through his hacks and this website."

"Happy could tell him she works at a government installation," Toby said. "She can complain about a fictional powerful jerk and wish a hacker would take him out. Trojan-horse the guy."

"He may want status, but he's not stupid," Happy protested. "If all of a sudden I'm in the government and hating powerful men, he's going to smell a rat."

"I agree," Cabe said. "We have to be very careful with this connection. If he shuts down his nlox account and disappears, it could take us too long to find him again, and next time he might kill somebody."

"We could hold a prom where he could be king," Paige said.

Everyone looked at her.

"I know. I was just brainstorming."

"Actually, I like that idea," Toby said.

"A prom for people who weren't prom types in high school," Sylvester said.

"Nothing to do with government or hacking, nothing to scare him," Cabe said. "Outside the box."

"Outside the box, off the worksheet and into a different program," Happy said. "If he's the only one we invite to this, he's going to figure out that he hasn't seen anything about it anywhere else, and he'll run. If we actually have a – " she said the word as if it were the ultimate in absurdity – "a – dance, how are we going to know who he is? You think he'll just show up saying, 'Hi, I'm Jack Giant Killer, you know, the guy who almost got a Commerce undersecretary thrown in jail, wanna dance?'"

Toby's eyes narrowed a little. "But that's what he wants. He'd love that. To be able to claim a smart pretty girl he wants to impress because he's the guy who outsmarted the government – If we could offer him that, he'd show up."

"And confess to a federal crime?"

"To impress you, sure."

"I've known felons to do dumber things to try to impress a woman," Cabe said.

"Besides, we don't have to make the invitation all about the Giant Killer hacking," Paige said. "You've been talking to him online for a while, haven't you?"

"You make it sound like we're dating. There are a bunch of us who kind of turn up on nlox regularly. We just talk, you know. Vent."

"So – he knows you like talking to him. Toby says he approves of you. Just invite him as one of your friends."

"Wouldn't it be easier for Happy just to say, 'Let's meet'?" Sylvester asked.

There was a moment of silence. Then Cabe shook his head. "Too hazardous. For him. If he's the only one walking up to a table where she's sitting, he's going to realize how obvious he is. If he can just slip into a crowd, he'll feel more secure."

"But that leaves the question of how we identify him," Sylvester said.

"Don't make it about identifying him," Walter said. "Make it about him identifying Happy."

Toby slapped his hands together. "Walter, you're a genius."

"Well – yeah – "

"It's a way he can prove his brilliance. It's a way he can prove his brilliance to her. She doesn't act like she's interested in identifying him. She makes it a challenge for him to identify her. He takes the initiative, he comes to her. He can take as many precautions as he wants, so he'll feel secure. But in the end he'll identify himself, and we've got him."

"We're sure that he hasn't already identified you?" Cabe asked Happy.

"We always had top-shelf security here," Happy replied, "and when you started giving us government work we increased that. I don't think he's as interested in me as you think he is, anyway. He probably won't bother with the prom thing at all."

"Well, there are other reasons why he'll attend the prom besides you," Toby said. "But if he doesn't come, no harm done. We have a prom, you tell him he missed out. Maybe some of the other nlox posters come and write about what a great time they had. It'll increase your credibility with him, and then we can try something else."

"Not to be negative," Sylvester said, "but the part about everyone having a great time. How do we make that happen?"

"It's a prom," Toby said in the tone of someone spelling cat. "You have music, and balloons and – the standard prom stuff. I don't know, I missed my prom, got kicked out of school a month before graduation for hacking the principal's computer. Walter, did you – "

"When I was seventeen I was taking classes at MIT and designing website security. It's so long ago, and I was so young, I don't even know if we did the prom thing in Ireland."

"Sylvester?" Toby asked with only a faintly hopeful tone.

Sylvester shook his head. "I wish. When I was a senior I was fourteen, and – well – me – but I swear I'd have gone stag if I could've danced just once with Laura Mayfield. She was so beautiful."

"Cheerleader?" Toby asked dryly.

"Well, yeah, but there was more to her than that. She was involved in so many things, and Homecoming Queen – "

"Probably mean, though," Happy said sympathetically.

"No. She was nice to everyone. Once I was standing in front of English class, trying to give a report, and there were a couple of guys in the back whispering and pointing at me and laughing. Laura turned around and just – looked at them, just gave them a look, and they stopped."

"Well," Cabe began, "even if you didn't feel like you could ask her to be your date – "

"She and the Student Council president had a major thing going."

" – but it sounds like she would've at least danced with you."

"I didn't dare ask. I stayed home and calculated the odds of my ever seeing her again after high school, given different variables."

There was a moment of silence. Sylvester straightened, saying, on a deliberately brighter note, "Happy, I bet you went to your prom."

"It was – I – "

"Couldn't get a date," Toby said.

"Toby!" Paige said in a shocked tone, and even Walter seemed to realize why that was out of line.

Toby looked around at them. "Oh, come on. Teenage boys? Confronted with a girl twice as smart and twice as angry as they are, and beautiful to boot? I'd be surprised if any of them had the courage to look her in the eye, much less ask her out."

"Well, that's the most flattering explanation I've ever had for being a social reject," Happy said.

"OK, Paige," Walter said, turning to her, "it's all up to you."

"Well," Paige said.

"You're kidding!"

"I could've gone," she said a little defensively. "I'd been going out with a guy for a few months. And he was a nice guy, there was nothing wrong with him. But he – I was – " She shook her head. "This sounds so snobby. But I was bored. We'd go to movies and he didn't want to talk about them afterward, we'd go to football games and he wasn't that involved. I don't know what he was interested in. He thought he'd major in business but couldn't say why, he picked the state college because it was closest to home and he wouldn't have to spend so much time traveling. Maybe some other girl could've brought out some life in him. He got married later on, and from what I heard they were happy. I guess we just weren't a good fit. And I didn't want to spend what was supposed to be this big exciting evening being bored, just so I could say I went to the prom. Not only would it be no fun for me, but kind of unfair to him. So I broke up with him, two or three weeks before, so he'd have time to find someone else to go with."

"And did he?" Happy asked.

"Oh, sure. Like I say, there was nothing wrong with him."

"But not you."

"Well, the guys I knew already had dates lined up."

"Great," Toby said. "Not a prom experience among us."

Cabe cleared his throat.

"Spoke too soon, Toby," Walter said.

"Jenny Carpenter," Cabe said with a reminiscent grin. "She had a wine-colored dress and I wore a wine-colored tie. I bought her a wrist corsage with little white orchids. She was beautiful. I'd just bought my first car a few months before. You know, we weren't nominated for anything, but the DJ played 'Always and Forever' and we were dancing – I felt like the king of, oh, the city. At least."

Paige smiled at Cabe, Walter studied him curiously, and Toby pointed at him.

"And that's it. That's the feeling we want to promise Giant Killer. It's what he thinks other people are taking from him, what he thinks he deserves. He'll come out of his bunker for it, I guarantee."

Cabe nodded. "All right. Let's do it. I'll have agents there as staff and guests."

"Happy, I'll be your date," Toby said.

"You – Why?"

"Because he needs to conquer something, he needs to take you away from someone. I'll know what behaviors will be sure to irritate the guy into action."

"Provided he shows up," Happy mumbled.

"Paige – " Was there a glint in Toby's eye? " – you'll be Walter's date."

"I don't see why we need dates," Walter said. "Isn't that the point, a prom for people who weren't – who aren't – prom types?"

"You need a date," Toby said flatly. "Sylvester going by himself is OK. He'll look like a nerdy guy hoping to get a girl to dance with him. He's perfect."

"Uh, thanks?" Sylvester said.

"If you're by yourself," Toby was still addressing Walter, "standing in a corner in your shirt and tie, not talking, watching everyone analytically, Giant Killer's going to think you're a fed. But if you're with Paige, you can play roles. She'll be a nice girl who wanted to go to a party and dance, and you'll be the stiff of a boyfriend she dragged along with her."

Happy gave a quickly muted snort of laughter. Cabe asked, "How do we start?"

Toby pointed at the screen. "His comment about the prom king. I'll – Happy – Vibe Isolator will say it gave her a great idea, a prom for people who weren't prom types in high school. I'll get other people involved in with the idea. Extend a special invitation to Jack Giant Killer, something non-threatening. Something along the lines of, I have to go with my significant other, but if you show up and find me, we can have a dance. A dance, at least. And something about an election for Prom King and Queen where there's a level playing field, it's not a contest just for people in the high-status clique. Something like that."

"Let him take the lead if he wants it," Cabe said.

Toby nodded. "I'm guessing he won't say a lot about it. But if I phrase it right, he'll come."

Happy said, "You want to engage with Jack Giant Killer under my user name, OK. But the moment you stop sounding like me, I'm taking over."

Toby grinned, wiggling his fingers like a master pianist warming up his hands. "Alluring but hostile. No problem."

.

The 911 call in central Ohio was brief. The male caller gasped out an address, then said, "He's got a gun." There was the sound of a gunshot, and the line went dead.

It was a good thing he'd given them the address; the system was doing something odd, and the call was untraceable. By the time the first of several police cars and a fire engine had rolled up, though, they knew that the address was the home of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Are we sure he's at home?" Officer Bob Church asked, putting away his cell phone and pounding on the door yet again. The home security alarm had been blaring inside the whole time they'd been here, non-stop whoops that were distracting even through walls and doors.

"He gave a speech in town tonight, so he should be," said the other officer standing on the front porch. "No answer inside?"

"I don't even hear ringing. Just clicks."

Another officer, standing nearby with a phone, disconnected the call and came over to Church. "Dispatch told the company to turn off the alarm. They said it is off."

"Great. So if it weren't for the phone call, we'd just be looking at an electronic screw-up. The neighbors didn't hear anything?"

Two of the surrounding officers shook their heads. Another said, "Next door they heard the alarm go off, but no gunshot. Everyone else was sleeping."

Two more officers rounded the corner of the house from the back, walking rapidly. "The back door's locked," one of them reported, "and no signs of disturbance that you can see from the windows. But there are two shoeprints on the back porch, tracking something red."

Church exhaled a puff of air. "So this is either a crime scene or the world's most elaborate hoax."

For a moment there was only the ear-grating sound of the alarm.

Then Church nodded, as if to himself. "Let's go in."