Colby couldn't wait to get Don aside after the NSA man Rob Derrick had left, but David Sinclair got to him first with Megan right on his heels.

It didn't matter; Don waved both Colby and Megan back inside with David. Megan plopped into a chair, although Colby was too tense to sit. He perched on the edge of Don's desk instead. David remained standing, arms folded and face set.

Don held up a hand. "Analysis?"

"Trying to pull the wool over our eyes."

"Lie after lie after lie."

"Just enough facts to make us think he's on our side."

Don nodded, grimly satisfied. "Then we're all in agreement. This Rob Derrick may have worked with Charlie in the past, but there's something going on here that no one has bothered to let us in on. And I, for one, am not particularly happy over it. Ladies' day at the ballgame: Megan?"

"Interview analysis: he's trying to get something from us without giving anything away. His movements were studied, not natural. He would catch your eye, then deliberately look away, just as the books say to do. And then there was that 'innocent' gaze." Megan sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. "I believe that he's worked with Charlie; we all heard Charlie identify him on an earlier call. But I agree with you, Don. There's something he knows that he isn't telling us. He's trying to use us, and I'd like to know why before we give him any additional information."

Don nodded, accepting her words. He gestured for David to speak. "Next in the batter's box: David Sinclair."

"I just heard back from my contacts overseas," David began. "I have a little more information on our dead guy; not a heck of a lot, but enough to be interesting. He is indeed Ned Ames, just as Charlie said, and he's got a good reputation among our guys. He was also known as a whiz at getting information back to NSA headquarters. But here's the interesting part: his last contact says that he was putting together information about a terrorist plot that would take place on the west coast somewhere. Something that was coming together, then it fell apart. Right after that was when Ames vanished."

"And turned up here, dead, on our doorstep," Don said grimly, "which suggests that something significant happened. Question is, is it here or over there?" He turned to the final member of his team. "Okay, batting clean up: Colby."

"I'm going over the kidnapping in my mind, Don, trying to think of what I could have done differently." Colby was clearly unhappy.

Don set him at ease. "We've been through that, Colby. You're lucky to be alive, not dead in a hail of bullets. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"Thanks, but that's not what I mean, Don. Charlie and I were talking; he was gabbing about the code. And I just remembered: he figured out part of it!"

That was interesting. All three of them leaned forward.

Colby was satisfied that he had their attention. "He talked about something called naquedah, something that doesn't exist except in fiction. Said Ned Ames used it as an unbreakable part of the code."

"Don't keep us in suspense, Colby," Megan chided. "Did Charlie say what it referred to?"

"Yeah." Colby paused, knowing all eyes were upon him. "He said it stood for nuclear stuff. Enriched uranium, plutonium; dirty bombs."

Don sat back in his chair, stunned. "No wonder everyone's playing games." He looked at each one of his team. "People, this is not a drill. We have a serious problem. If someone is playing with nuclear fire, this has just increased our worries by a whole other level of magnitude." He tapped the paper on his desk, the one that contained the incomprehensible gibberish of code. "What does this code say? Is it a plot to blow up something right here in Los Angeles? Is it instructions to a local terrorist cell?" He stared at the paper once again, wishing that the words would somehow jump up and shout out the answer. "We have to find Charlie."

Two days. Two days to crack a code that he'd taken six months to create, and that various other people had tweaked to their own needs. Professor Charles Eppes had designed it to be as close to unbreakable as possible; now he found himself regretting that expertise. This would have been a lot easier if he'd taken some shortcuts, and left some flaws in place.

He had come up in the world. His bare prison room now possessed a couple of blankets in the corner to sleep on, and a table and a chair.

And the three pictures. His captors had tacked them prominently on the wall in front of him, to remind him what kind of stakes he was playing for. They gave him a computer to work with, but refused any internet access. They were taking no chances that he'd call out for help.

That didn't mean that Charlie wouldn't watch for any opportunity that might present itself. Not that he saw any. The door was locked, and the sole window had been boarded over. Any attempt to exit through there would result in noise and a quick re-capture.

Of course, there was always the 'hit-'em-over-the-head-with-the-chair routine. Charlie snorted to himself. Don had told him several times that the move was over-rated. That it was more likely to get him killed than free. Still, if the two day mark came close, Charlie would try it. Better to get killed himself than to have his father or two closest friends assassinated. One NSA agent and one FBI agent—Colby Granger—were enough. He'd seen Colby go down in a hail of bullets as Charlie was being stuffed into the sedan, and Charlie grieved for the loss of the young man who had so much to live for.

Charlie too had much to live for, and an equally as great incentive to make it happen. Communication, that was the key. Somehow he needed to communicate with the outside world. He needed to find out where he was; it wasn't too far away, he knew that. They'd taken him in their car for only a couple of hours but he'd been blindfolded and unable to identify anything.

Time to take a break from the code. His captors were outside the door somewhere. Charlie went to the boarded up window and tried to peer through.

It was bright sunlight outside; it looked like mid-morning. Through the crack he could see a dusty alleyway, an overflowing trashcan tilted against a brick wall. Beyond that: nothing. No people, no cats or dogs, not even a pigeon to disturb the dust. No help there. It looked as though there was a street signpost at the corner but when Charlie finally worried away enough of the board to be able to see the sign on top of the post, it was missing. Some kid or other had stolen the street sign. Charlie's location was probably decorating some college student's dorm room. Wonderful; done in by students again.

Not that it mattered. Charlie had no way of contacting Don, no way to contact anyone at all. All he had was the code, waiting for him to crack it and figure out what Ned Ames was trying to say.

He took another look at the thing, the symbols lying mute on the paper. It was a copy, probably one of the copies that Don had made. It had that look to it, with a dark edge on side where the paper had been imperfectly placed on the copier. His kidnappers wanted him to decode it, Don wanted him to decode it, the NSA wanted him to decode it; he'd better work some more on it. He might not want his kidnappers to have it, but decoding it and giving it to them weren't necessarily the same thing. And, if he were forced to do so to save Larry's or Amita's or his father's life, he would need to have it ready if at all possible.

He'd already transliterated the symbols into English. There was always the chance that Ned had used Arabic as the base, but Charlie tended to doubt it. Ned preferred to work in English when he was sending stuff back home and there was no reason for him to have changed. Besides, it was hard to transliterate 'naquedah' into anything other than English.

But what would Ned be doing talking about nuclear things? Charlie had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew the answer to that. There was entirely too much radioactive material trading hands in the world right now, and that sort of stuff getting into the wrong hands was exactly what Ned was being paid to find out about.

And that was a clue to the code. With a sigh, Charlie bent his head to the paper, tapping in instructions to the little laptop that he'd been offered to help with the work. At least concentrating on the code would allow him to ignore his various aches and bruises.

"I hope you realize that this almost never works," Colby murmured, his eyes closed.

"That's right," Megan told him in soothing tones. She had the field agent relaxing in a comfortable chair that they'd 'borrowed' from the conference room, breaking all sorts of regulations by lighting a scented candle in Don's office. If the Fire Marshall chose this moment to drop by…

"It's okay if it doesn't work. It's a long shot," she added, a smile slipping into her words. "We're grasping at straws. Keep your eyes closed, Colby, and just listen to the sound of my voice. Let everything relax."

"Right. We're on the edge of a possible nuclear hot zone, and you want me to relax."

"Keep your eyes closed," Megan instructed him, refusing to get upset. "Take your mind back in time. You're sitting in your car, in the driver's seat. Charlie is beside you. You're driving with traffic; there isn't much of it. You and Charlie are talking. What is he saying?"

"He's talking about the code." Colby finally settled in, the worry lines in his face easing. He made a conscious effort to relax further. "He's telling me about the naquedah."

"That's good," Megan encouraged. "You're not looking at him. Your attention is on the road. But you still heard him, with the corner of your mind. What did he say?"

A small smile curved on Colby's lips. "He was worried about Don."

Don arched his eyebrows. Me?

Megan hushed him with a look. "Worried about Don?"

"Worried that Don couldn't take care of himself." Colby's voice had become quieter, more calm. More detached. "As if that could happen."

Nice to know that you have confidence in me, Colby.

"You told him that Don would be okay."

"Yeah."

"Go back a little further," Megan urged. "What did Charlie say about the naquedah?"

"That it meant that whatever the code said, it was talking about nuclear stuff. Enriched uranium, plutonium, that kind of thing. Had Charlie pretty worked up. Said that it was something specific to this Ames guy, that he was the only one that ever used that word." The words flowed more easily, now that the dam had been broken. "Charlie said that it would have something to do with the buying and selling of weapons-grade nuclear material."

"That's good," Megan told him, keeping her own excitement level under control. "What else did he say?"

Colby frowned, his eyes still closed. "Nothing more about the uranium stuff."

"But he did say more."

"Yeah. Worried about Don."

Megan let him muse about that for a moment, then gently urged him on. "Let's move forward in time, Colby. You're driving. There's a sedan up ahead. It's moving slowly."

"Yeah." Colby looked relieved that there was something more he could remember. "Big black thing. Too big to get around. I gotta go slow behind it. At first I think that they're looking for a street sign or something."

"You slow down," Megan confirmed. "Then what happens?"

Another frown. "Wham! Right in the back. I get rear-ended. I'm thinking that there's a total moron behind me not paying attention to the road. Next thing I know, there are guns waving in my face."

Don whispered into Megan's ear, "Ask him what kind of guns."

"What kind of guns?" Megan asked obediently.

"An automatic," Colby said, looking off into the distance with his eyes still closed, seeing something only he had seen. "Military grade; our stuff. Probably got it from some local gun shop. Nothing too spectacular. Maybe a Heckler of some kind, or an M-16. Whatever it was, it threw a hell of a lot of lead."

"How many were there?"

Another frown. "At least three. I didn't see all of 'em; I was a little busy at the time ducking. Two of 'em grabbed Charlie, hustled him off in the black sedan in front. Another one took out my windshield. Lucky he didn't take me out along with it."

"Black sedan," Don hissed into David's ear. "That's a detail that we didn't have."

Now came the difficult part. "I want you to go back a few minutes in time," Megan instructed, "before the other car hit you. You were watching the black sedan. You came up very close behind it because it was going so slow."

"Yeah. Crawled right up onto their ass. Getting ready to honk at 'em."

"There's a license plate on the back of the car. Did you see it?"

Eyebrows furrowed. "Not really."

"That's okay," Megan hastened to reassure Colby. "Can you tell if it was a California plate?"

"Yeah," Colby responded slowly. "Yeah, they were California plates. Started with a 'C'."

"That's good," Megan said, trying to restrain herself. "What was the next number?"

"Not sure." Long pause. Don wanted to shake the man, shake the answer out of him. "I think it might have been a nine."

"That's very good, Colby. Can you remember any more?"

Colby cocked his head, trying to see the license plate in his mind's eye. "The last letter. It was a Z. I remember thinking that it was the last letter of the alphabet, in the last position on the plate. Stupid thing to be thinking."

"But it worked," Megan told him. "It helped you to remember. Now, I want you to think about the car itself. It was a sedan, and it was black. What was the make and model?"

Colby was trying. "It was big. I think it was something American; a Lincoln or a Caddy, maybe. It was big."

"It was black. What color was the interior?"

It was too much. Colby blinked, and his eyes opened. "It was…" he trailed off. "I'm sorry, Megan. Haven't the foggiest." He blinked again. "Did you get anything?"

"You gave us a partial license plate." It was more than they had had. "That narrows it down," Don told him. "You did good, Colby. Especially for someone who doesn't believe in this 'hypnosis crap'."

Colby snorted. "You're lucky you got that much. You run the plates; I'll take the rental agencies."

Don turned back around. "What?"

"The rental agencies. Where that patch came from." Colby looked confused. "What did you think I meant?"

"What patch?" Don tried to stay calm.

"The patch on the back fender…" Again, Colby's voice trailed off. "Don, I can't believe that I didn't remember that! Don, there was a sticker on the back fender. The car was a rental! Lame Duck, or something like that! The patch looked like a couple of wings!"

Finally! A lead! Don snapped into action. "Megan, run the partial; see what cross-matches against a black sedan. David and Colby, hit the phone books. I want the address of every car rental agency in the area that looks like it might fit Colby's description of the bumper sticker. Hustle, people!"

They hustled.

Charlie couldn't help his immediate reaction to the noise of the door knob turning: he cringed. Whatever was coming, it wouldn't be good. Bruises ached in sheer memory, and the three pictures hastily tacked to the wall seemed to loom down on him: only you, Charlie, can save us.

There were only three of his captors this time: the one who'd shot Colby, the one with the scar, and one of the bigger men who'd dragged Charlie out of the car. It was enough. Charlie wasn't going anywhere. The biggest man positioned himself in front of the only exit, daring the smaller mathematician to try to escape.

Scarface wasted no time. "Have you decoded the message, Dr. Eppes?"

Ice stabbed through Charlie. "It's difficult. There are so many variables. But I'm making progress," he added hastily. "Please, you have to give me more time. I've almost got it."

"Take as much time as you need," Scarface invited pleasantly. But the threat came through his words, emphasized when he grabbed Charlie's arm and twisted it behind his back. The move caused Charlie's ribs to grate against themselves; he cried out. "Yes, professor, take all the time that you need," Scarface hissed. "Others will pay for it."

The third man, the one who had shot Colby, opened up a digital camcorder, flicking the switches to cause the electronic device to whir to life. Scarface shoved Charlie's face close to see the recorded scene on the tiny camera.

Amita walked slowly across the quadrangle, her shoulders slumped. It was clear that she was upset, that something wasn't going right in her life. Charlie had the obvious suspicion that it was his own absence that caused that drooping posture. In the lower corner of the screen Charlie could see today's date. These men could have re-timed the clock on the camcorder just to try to fool him, but somehow Charlie couldn't see them taking that sort of trouble. There was no need to do all that work. It was Amita, and the recording was made today, and it was a very clear message to one Professor Charles Eppes: decode the cipher or she dies. Soon.

"Don, I fail to see how I can help you," Dr. Fleinhardt said. He had placed himself in Charlie's chair, behind the desk, steepling his fingers as a sign of his own frustration. The chaos on Charlie's desk appeared to affect him not one bit; another sign of worry on the organized mind. "I am a physicist, not a mathematician. And, beyond that, your brother—who was the creator of the afore-mentioned code—told you that he himself would have difficulty in deciphering the missive sans the key. I am perfectly willing—yea, even eager—to assist, but I fear my meager skills will not be up to this task."

The whiteboard had been pushed to the back of the room, the earlier Forensics team having done their measurements and determined that where Colby had found the bullet casings was indeed where the assassin had stationed himself. The team had been thorough, and, as a result, the office was much tidier than Don was used to seeing it. There was a large piece of cardboard taped over the window, preventing the cooler air-conditioned air inside the office from escaping into The Great Outdoors. Not that the air-conditioner was currently in use; the weather was cool for this time of year and, in typical L.A. fashion, lacking in humidity. Outside was downright pleasant.

Don was beyond noticing such sundries as the weather. He was more interested in a) finding his kidnapped brother and b) finding out where the suspected stash of nuclear weapons-grade fissionable material was being kept, preferably before that fissionable material did what fissionable material was supposed to do: go boom. At this point he didn't care that neither 'a' nor 'b' took priority; as far as Don Eppes was concerned, they were of equal importance. Finding one meant finding the other, and finding both meant that the world would be a substantially better place to live in.

All of which meant that the code needed to be broken. He turned to the other non-official person in the room who was desperately trying to figure out which keys to tap on the laptop. Despair edged his voice. "Amita?"

"I'm trying, Don." Amita had the same sense of despair. "But there's a difference between really really good, and genius. I'm really really good; Charlie's a genius. And he worked on this thing for six months. There's no way I can break it in twenty four hours. I've got computers already trying," she added petulantly. "I'm writing the programs as fast as I can, trying to break it through sheer computer muscle, trying to figure out what it says. Everything keeps coming back garbage. One possibility even turned up as a rhyme with some really foul language."

"Was it—?"

"Not unless there's a black cat involved, doing something unspeakable with intestines."

Don shuddered. "Could that be some sort of secondary riddle?"

"It's always possible, but I doubt it. Charlie's work is always more elegant than that. When you are through decoding, you know it because everything simply falls into place. He taught me some of the basics—national security level basics, not the stuff that gets taught to undergraduates—and there was always that thrill when the pieces went together like magic." Amita sighed. "I'm not even close."

"Perhaps if we threw the weight of the university mainframe toward this problem?" Larry suggested.

Amita considered, but shook her head. "It won't help. Despite the route that I'm trying, it's not power we need, or computing speed, it's the inspiration. Even the best computers can only do what we tell them to. Even a Cray wouldn't be able to solve this one without human guesswork."

"Ah. Yes, you are quite correct," Larry nodded. "I see that. Naquedah."

"Not you, too? What is this naquedah stuff?" Don felt confused. "What does it have to do with anything?"

"A fictional, fissionable material," Larry explained. "It's from an actually rather intriguing television series. One of the lead characters is a brilliant physicist, not unlike myself—"

"Yeah, I know that, but—"

"It illustrates my point, Don," Amita broke in. "Without the proper referents, no one will be able to break this code. It's not completely in code; parts of it are references to things that only Ned Ames and his handler back at the NSA knew. Naquedah was one of them, and it means nuclear material. Charlie knew that, and he may know other pieces. It's like when teen-agers talk. You can get the gist of what they're saying from how they say it, but some of the stuff they say doesn't make sense because it's in teen-speak. For example, if a 'black cat' refers to a certain hangout, there's no way you'd know that unless one of the teens told you. This code is like that. Even if I could decipher it, I might not recognize that I'd gotten it right because of the referents that I'd miss. The only sure piece I have is the nuclear material, and that's because of what Charlie told Colby."

"Then it's hopeless." Don let the words hang out in the open air, praying that someone would contradict him.

No one did.